


Talking About Monsters

by kathkin



Series: Vampire Verse [4]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Bigotry & Prejudice, Depression, I swear there's comedy, M/M, Self-Harm, Substance Abuse, Werewolves, equal parts angst and comedy, internalised werewolfphobia? if you get what I mean, references to past canonical character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-08
Updated: 2014-11-23
Packaged: 2018-02-20 09:36:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 46,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2423909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kathkin/pseuds/kathkin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Arthur Pendragon didn’t know very much about werewolves growing up – or much about the supernatural at all, really. He grew up in that comfortable, upper and upper-middle class bubble of nice and normal, where the supernatural was something that happened to other people.</i> Arthur gets turned into a werewolf, kicked out of his old life, and moves in with a vampire. Then things get complicated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In which Arthur goes on a company retreat

**Author's Note:**

> Prequel/Perspective flip for [Vampires and Werewolves and Flatshares, Oh My!](http://archiveofourown.org/works/872787) Beta'd by [imnotjkr](http://imnotjkr.livejournal.com/).

Arthur Pendragon didn’t know very much about werewolves growing up – or much about the supernatural at all, really. It wasn’t just that he was human. He grew up in that comfortable, upper and upper-middle class bubble of nice and normal, the bubble where regardless of your political leanings, the supernatural was something that happened to other people.

To the liberally-minded, werewolves were to be pitied. To the conservative, they were objects of scorn and disgust. Arthur spent his childhood firmly ensconced in the latter camp, and he could more or less count the facts he knew about werewolves on his fingers:

1) They were something dirty and shameful. The word ‘werewolf’ was uttered in the playground of his private nursery like a dirty secret. Arthur toddled home and asked his nanny what it mean. She shushed him and told him to ask his father. Asked his father over dinner. Father said he’d find out when he was older. 

2) You could tell them apart from normal people by sight. A detour home from the park took Arthur and his new nanny past the S.R.C. (Supernatural Rehabilitation Centre). A man with hollow, haunted eyes came out the doors, and Arthur’s nanny snatched him out of the way. “Don’t look at that man,” she’d whispered to him. “He’s probably a werewolf.”

3) “Werewolves look like regular people, right, but sometimes they turn into giant wolf monsters – and you can never trust them, right, because they could go at _any. Time_.” Gregory Sutcliffe. Six and a half, best reader in the class, parents who were willing to answer all sorts of questions; in short, a source of forbidden knowledge. He’d gone home and asked of Morgana, who had recently come to live with them. She’d scoffed. “No, don’t be silly. Werewolves only change at the full moon. That’s once a month.”

4) They were controversial. Arthur’s (private, expensive) primary school aired a fifties film called _Wolfman_ for a Christmas treat. _Wolfman_ got three complaints from parents; two because their kids got nightmares and one because the kid’s uncle was a werewolf and _Wolfman_ was deemed ‘offensive’. This last complaint wasn’t listened to, but somehow news of it spread. Kid with werewolf uncle becomes social pariah.

5) Some people disagreed with Arthur’s father. These people were wrong. In P.S.E. class they got taught about vampires, werewolves, all that supernatural shit and the importance of ‘tolerance’. Arthur, obedient to a fault, put up his little hand and asked why they should _tolerate_ monsters. The other kids in his (private, expensive, upper and upper-middle class) classroom agreed. Told his father. Teacher fired.

6) They were tragic. At thirteen, he had a new favourite pastime: bluffing his way into 15-certificate films. Gregory Sutcliffe had had one hell of a growth spurt and passed for older than he was. Bluffed into _Shadow of the Moon_ expecting _Wolfman_ ; got a tragic love story. Man becomes werewolf. Man’s girlfriend tries to stand by him. Werewolf kills girlfriend. Man kills self. Arthur left the cinema shaken, with the intense feeling that he had seen something forbidden. Under pressure from Arthur’s father and his ilk, _Shadow of the Moon_ was banned from local cinemas. Many towns follow suite. (Arthur watched _Shadow of the Moon_ again when he was twenty-six, and could not see what the fuss was about. Just as offensive as _Wolfman_ , maybe more so on account of dressing itself up in liberal ‘tolerant’ bullshit.)

7) He was right to hate them. Under pressure from father, Arthur, aged sixteen, joined the (private, expensive) school debating club. Took the proposing side in the motion _the house believes that werewolves and vampires should be deported_. Won by a landslide.

8) They were disgusting. First year of university he met his first werewolf. Shook hands, then excused himself at the first possible opportunity to wash off the taint in the men’s bathroom.

9) They weren’t just absent from his bubble; they were outright forbidden. Aged twenty-two, Arthur stepped from university to Pendragon Inc’s shipping department as effortlessly as he might step off the curb to avoid approaching pedestrians. Read up on company policy: under hiring, it said ‘ _no supernatural minorities_ ’. e.g. werewolves.

Pendragon Inc had a dizzying array of departments. Arthur’s father ( _father_ , always, never dad) used to joke that they had everything but the kitchen sink, which confused Arthur when he was four and continued to confuse him when he was twenty-three and learned that they did in fact own a subsidiary that made sinks. In short, it was not a funny joke or one that made sense, and it was the only joke Arthur’s father knew.

They had a lot subsidiaries. They had a lot of fingers in a lot of pies. At least one subsidiary company made pie. Arthur’s job, as deputy head of shipping, mostly involved sitting in a fancy office, board meetings, playing with columns of figures, interviewing prospective employees, and organising everyone in the department to congregate in the boardroom to watch every time their beloved CEO was on television.

Uther Pendragon was not, and had never been, in politics, but he’d be damned if that shut him up. The Supernatural Program had been a travesty, but the new SPRVWW was even worse. Bring back the hunters. Oh, they still had hunters? Well, loosen the regulations. Let every man be a hunter if he wanted to. Every man had the right to protect his home and family – and after all, the hunting weapons on the market today, in the twenty-first century, were almost harmless to humans.

The worst you could get off a sunlight grenade was flash burns. Sonic weapons for dealing with werewolves might make your ears hum but that was it. Tear down the RHCs. Bring back the Monster Holes. 

(There’d been a Monster Hole in _Wolfman_. They’d been cells, as Arthur understood it; cells like pits, where you’d throw the monster to rot; though oftentimes they’d climb and claw their way out again for one last showdown.)

Uther Pendragon’s favourite thing to do in his speeches was talk about Arthur’s mother. He’d talk about how she had volunteered for an early version of what would become the Supernatural Program; how she had met a friendly – _friendly_ – vampire, and in her naïve, precious innocence thought they could be friends; how on a wet, miserable night when Arthur was not even a year old, she had been found drained of blood in an alleyway a few streets away from the program headquarters –

At this point he would usually get choked up and have to stop talking, and Arthur would too; he would get sincerely, truly upset, and everyone in the department would rush to comfort him.

Especially the girls; the girls liked to comfort Arthur. But Arthur only had eyes for one girl.

He and Vivian had met at a company social. She worked down in marketing. It was, Vivian insisted for the next year and a half, love at first sight; Arthur always considered that more of a running joke than a serious statement, since the ‘love’ had had more to do with copious amounts of beer (Arthur) and Cosmopolitans (Vivian) and tequila (both of them); but he thought that Vivian meant it for real, and he liked that she meant it for real. Vivian wasn’t the deepest girl he’d ever dated (Kara, second year of university, card-carrying member of the campus’s Communist Soc; the whole thing had gone down in flames, obviously, but a fun bit of rebellion on both sides), but if she was shallow she was sweetly and sincerely shallow (or that was what Arthur thought, anyway), not to mention she was gorgeous.

Arthur wasn’t in love with Vivian, but he thought he was. He was happy with Vivian. He was happy in his fancy office. And he was happy working with his team.

His team being Lancelot, Leon, Elyan and Percival, four guys hired around the same time as him. If Arthur’s team wasn’t such a boy’s club it would have included his assistant Gwen as well, but she hung out with them after work anyway on account of being Lancelot’s girlfriend and Elyan’s sister. Arthur’s team; his bros.

“And it’s ‘cause we are _such_ great bros that we get to go on holiday,” he finished up. He was speaking in the drunken drawl he usually reserved for time with his team, but he was in such a good mood he was making an exception.

“I thought it was a company team-building trip,” said Morgana, pouring herself another glass of wine. She was back from New York for three weeks to sort out some financial shit with Uther – and, unofficially, to keep up her tradition of semi-regularly getting shitfaced with her younger brother.

“Yeah, but c’mon, that’s a pisstake,” said Arthur. “We don’t need building. We’re already a team.”

He was a month shy of twenty-five. They were celebrating early.

“You should start a band,” said Morgana, and she was joking, but Arthur thought it sounded like the _actual best_ idea and started drafting out possible names on a piece of scrap paper. They all seemed awesome at three in the a.m., but when he woke up the next morning he found he had scribbled:

_The A Team_  
Arthur and the Shippers  
The Flying Wankers 

And then something illegible. But he was running late for the mini bus with a splitting headache, so he folded it into the pocket of his trousers anyway and texted Vivian on his way out the door.

_Hey babes. OMW to team building in the countryside! :S See you in a week? X_

She texted back a few minutes later:

_Sure love you stay away from the wildlife!!! Xoxo_

It was the last communication he had from Vivian for the better part of a month and a half.

The official reason for the team building trip was Gareth, their new team member, but Arthur frankly didn’t give a shit; it was a holiday with his mates that he was getting paid for. They were dumped in what passed for wilderness – a country park and wildlife sanctuary – with tents, camping food, safety gear, and a list ofbullshit tasks they were supposed to be doing. It took Gareth all of five minutes to accidentally set off the flare gun.

“Sorry,” he said with a guilty squirm as they all glared. The mini-bus was already heading back to see what the problem was.

Once that was sorted out, they put up the tents and made a valiant attempt at the scavenger hunt, but by the second night, sore and tired and uncomfortable, they had broken out the beer.

“So what I’m thinking is,” Arthur said, “I’m the lead guitar, Elyan sings –” Elyan had once been a choir boy, for which he was relentlessly teased. “– Lancelot takes bass, Percival on the drums, and Leon, Leon –”

“What about me?” said Gareth.

Arthur blanked. “I dunno, groupie? And Leon can be, I dunno, keyboard.”

“I can’t play the piano,” said Leon.

“Yeah, that’s why I’m putting you on _keyboard_ ,” said Arthur, the _duh_ self-evident. “Anyway, we need names, ‘cause all mine are shite.”

They started tossing names around, but Arthur didn’t get to writing any of them down. It must have been around midnight when they collectively passed out in their tents; around three when Arthur woke up bursting for a piss. He successfully extricated himself from the tent without waking Lancelot and picked his way through the campsite, trying not to make any noise. Not that anyone would have been able to hear it over Percival snoring.

He stumbled, feet shoved bare into his trainers, to what seemed like a safe distance from the camp site and prying ears, found a convenient tree and rested his sleepy forehead against the bark while he peed. His ears were ringing. He shouldn’t have drunk so much.

He’d finished, tucked himself back in and was in the act of stretching when he heard a snap. He turned his head in the direction of the camp site, of its homely lights, and called, “Lancelot?”

No answer. It was probably just the wind, or the forest settling, or whatever it was that made noises in the woods by night. He finished his stretch and idly considered how nice it would be to be back in his sleeping bag.

A sound, one that made all the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, all the hairs on his arms, all the hairs on his goddamn feet. 

The sound, somewhere nearby, of a wolf howling.

Okay, so a wolf. Probably just a regular wolf. A wolf, in a country park, in Surrey – that was a thing that could happen, right? Or maybe it was a dog –

A _snap_ and a _crackle_ of footsteps nearby – no, paw-steps. Something big and four-footed moving in the trees. Arthur swallowed, his throat dry, his mind muzzily alert, and wondered if he should bolt. Maybe he’d have a better chance if he bolted. They’d all been given little torches; his was in his pocket still. He flicking it on and cast its wavering spot of light across the trees. Leaves; branches; empty space; rolling, bristling fur. He whipped the torch around to follow it, but it was already somewhere the light wouldn’t reach.

In the darkness, somewhere, a growl.

Slowly, slowly, movements steady, he knelt on the ground and lifted a heavy, soggy stick. “Okay,” he said, deliriously calm. “Okay. C’mon then, you bastard.”

The thing – the wolf – the _creature_ paced out of the trees, torchlight catching on its claws, and in the split second Arthur had before it leapt he thought that _Wolfman_ really had not done it justice. It was a huge bristling mass of spikes and claws and fangs and beady eyes. He could see the rage and the evil in its eyes –

It pounced, and he yelled. He fell to the ground. He beat at its broad head with his stick, but that did nothing; the stick broke into wet fragments and his torch rolled away across the leaves, and he was left defenceless as its jaws closed around his leg and bit down, worrying the flesh, playing with him like a dog with a chew toy –

The pain, like a white-hot steel trap, jarred through his whole body, and he screamed again, and again; amidst all the chaos he was aware as he stared at the dark shape latched onto his body, he was aware that he was staring down at his own future.

There was a crack and a flash of miraculous red light; the jaws released him, and he could breathe, but it was still there; the wolf was still there, wheeling around to face Lancelot as he fumbled another flare into the gun.

He didn’t manage it, but it didn’t matter; the sound of the others yelling their way over from the camp startled it. It turned and ran, and its footsteps seemed to shake the ground.

The ground, which was already hot and sticky with his blood. Lancelot looked at Arthur, eyes wide, and Arthur looked at Lancelot; and he was sure that they both knew, in that moment, just what had happened and what it meant.

Arthur’s head thunked against the ground. He was sure he could feel it already, feel the venom swimming and buzzing in his blood, going to work on his cells, twisting and warping them – but in the hospital they told him he wouldn’t have been able to feel it, it wasn’t something you could feel, or not like that.

The world dissolved into a haze of sound and colour. The cold forest floor softened and gave way to a mattress and everything was eye-searingly white.

He was in a hospital bed; he’d been in the hospital bed for a day.

“The window for the antidote to take effect is tiny,” the doctor was saying. “Ten minutes after infection, tops. We didn’t get to you in time. I’m sorry.”

The hospital was a mess of sharp, horrible smells and sounds that hurt his nose and ears. The doctor told him that was a normal symptom of his infection.

‘Infection’, that was the word they used, and for his first day of renewed consciousness Arthur kept himself calm by thinking of it like that. He had an infection. He was sick. He was being treated, and he would get better. They’d knitted his skin back together and they said once he recovered a bit they’d prescribe him medication that would make his condition easier to control.

He kept up sweet, sweet denial for just that one day. On his second morning in hospital flowers arrived for him; he thought they’d be from Vivian, but they were from Gwen, with an apology for not being able to visit.

He only got two visitors in hospital, unless you counted the counsellor from the SPRVWW. The first was Lancelot; he shuffled into the room, the wild look Arthur remember from the night he was infected still dancing in his eyes. He’d brought a card signed by everyone on Arthur’s team, and Gareth, and Gwen.

“We didn’t want you to be lonely,” he said, “so we figured someone ought to visit you.”

“What,” Arthur joked. “Did you draw the short straw?” Sitting in his plastic hospital chair, Lancelot’s face drooped. And yeah, they had actually drawn straws. They’d got fucking straws together and said that whoever drew the shortest one had to go see Arthur – had to go sit in the same room as a werewolf. “I was joking,” he said lamely. “Joking, Lance.”

“We all wanted to come,” Lancelot assured him. “It’s just – things are complicated right now.” He bit his lip. “I don’t think you should hear this from me.”

Lancelot smelled like sweat; he smelled like aftershave, the same aftershave Arthur had been given for Christmas by Gwen one year, the name started with an S; he smelled like the bacon and brie he’d had for lunch; and Arthur could pick out each and every one of those smells like threads in a tapestry.

He’d been in the hospital for a week when Morgana came to visit him; been stitched up, healed a little, developed a secondary infection and sweated it out of his system, before Morgana could fly back from the states.

“I came as soon as I could,” she said, and he knew she meant it. He knew he’d never been so glad to see her in his life before. Without another word she dumped her bag on the floor, sat on the bed, and gathered him up in her arms. “I’m sorry, Arthur. I’m so, so sorry.”

Arthur wrapped an arm around her waist and held on. The smell of her perfume and shampoo made his nose hurt and his eyes water, but he suffered through it, because he did not want to let go.

“I’ll stay here as long as you need me,” she promised.

She was as good as her word.

*

These are the things that Arthur knew about the supernatural before the incident: it was the scum at the bottom of the civilised world. Vampires and werewolves, as fallen humans were the scum of the scum. Vampires were the leeches that swam in the scum, and werewolves the fleas that hopped about it. It would be better to be dead than turned. That was why hunters were so noble, or had been before the government had neutered them. It was a mercy to kill a vampire or a werewolf.

And yet, sitting in his hospital bed, Arthur did not want to die. He’d always had a hazy notion that if this was to happen he’d save a hunter the job and do it himself, but he didn’t want to die. The future, awful as it was, was still there, and how bad could it be? He didn’t even feel different.

Well, he did feel different. His senses were different, but the doctors promised him they could fix that. There was the wolf in his chest, a hot ball of rage and sex and noise, but they said the meds would make that easier to handle as well. There’d be scars, but other than that his body would be the same, except for that one day out of the month.

Becoming a werewolf wasn’t what he’d thought.

This, then, was what happened when you became a werewolf. You had surgery, if necessary. You spent a week or so drugged up on painkillers and antibiotics until your flesh knitted itself back together – which it would do more quickly, now. When you were properly lucid, a doctor from the SPRVWW came and talked to you. A therapist came and talked to you, and told you that you were required to attend at least three follow-up sessions. You were given a form to fill out to register with the SPRVWW, so they’d know where and who you were, and so you’d be entitled to use their containment and recovery facilities.

Arthur filled out the form without a thought. He hated the SPRVWW, he truly hated it, he’d been taught to hate it, but how else was he supposed to do this? They’d help him. They’d keep him sanitised and medicated. It wouldn’t be a big deal.

Oh, but the SPRVWW didn’t provide medication after the first three months; didn’t you know? After that you went to a regular pharmacist, and it was stupidly expensive. Werewolves were not entitled to use the NHS. No matter. Arthur had been taught to disapprove of them too, and it wasn’t like he couldn’t afford to buy medication.

Because of course it wasn’t going to be so bad. He didn’t feel like a different person. He didn’t feel like a monster. He still felt like Arthur, and surely everyone would see that, the way Morgana had. He was still Arthur. Nothing had to change.

These are the people who did not visit Arthur in hospital: Any of his team outside of Lancelot. Gwen. Vivian. His father.

Well, they were all busy, weren’t they? Especially his father. And he knew how much Vivian hated hospitals. At the back of his mind he wondered why she hadn’t even texted him or sent him a card, but he told himself that it wasn’t fair to think like that. She had her reasons. Of course she did.

A week to recover from the bite, another week to get over the secondary infection that had wiped him out, and a third week ‘for observation’, and Arthur was discharged into the care of the SPRVWW. They offered him a room in their hostel, as was customary, but he said no; he’d go home. He limped out of the hospital, Morgana supporting his bad side, his first dose of medication clasped in his hand in its paper bag with the SPRVWW logo on one side. It was all behind him, for a week, at least, and he was intensely relieved.

They went back to his flat; Morgana ordered dinner. Arthur texted Vivian and sent an email to his father to let them know he was out of hospital, then sat down to read the leaflet that had come with his pills from start to finish.

“I’ve ordered pizza,” said Morgana from the kitchen. Glasses clinked. “Are you drinking?”

“Not sure this stuff mixes with alcohol,” said Arthur. It didn’t say anywhere, but it didn’t hurt to be safe. Three times a day, with food. He figured the pizza place was pretty quick and took his first dose right away, standing over the kitchen sink.

It worked fast. His senses were almost back to normal by the time the pizza arrived, and he relished his first normal-tasting food in days.

“If you’re sure you’re going to be alright here, I can get a flight out on Tuesday morning,” said Morgana. “I’ll stay if you need me, but my boss is going to be pissed if I take much more time off work.”

“Book the flight,” said Arthur. “I’m going to be okay.” He scraped garlic butter out of his tub onto his pizza. God, but the wolf made him hungry – his condition made him hungry. That was how he was resolved to think about this.

Neither text nor email had been replied to by the next morning. He lay in bed, staring at the screen of his phone, wondering. His scars ached. He took some painkillers, then got up so he could eat breakfast and take his pills.

They spent the day on the sofa, watching films they used to watch when they were kids. Morgana kept trying to steer the conversation onto Arthur’s condition, and he kept evading because there was nothing to talk about. After a while she dropped it.

Sunday morning there still wasn’t anything from Vivian and he was starting to feel a twinge of unease; more than a twinge, really. But there was an email from his father, albeit a terse one: would Arthur be well enough to come into the office for a meeting 9 o’clock Monday morning? Yes, of course he would.

“Did you speak to him at all while I was in hospital?” said Arthur. He hadn’t asked before; their dad and Morgana hadn’t been on good terms for a while. They didn’t tend to speak voluntarily.

“Once,” said Morgana. “I called him to let him know I was staying on longer.” Arthur waited for her to go on. She didn’t go on. 

“What did he say about me?”

Morgana put down the coffee pot and abruptly rested a comforting hand on his wrist. “He wasn’t in the best place when I spoke to him,” she said. “I don’t want to repeat what he said. Don’t make me repeat what he said.” Then she paused biting her lip. “He’ll come around. I’m sure he’ll come around eventually. He came around about me being bi eventually.”

That was true. He’d even put Morgana’s girlfriend in the Christmas card for the two years they’d been living together.

He was looking forward to going to the office. He was looking forward to seeing his father, and more than that he was looking forward to seeing Patricia. It had only been a few weeks since he’d taken her out the garage, but it felt like an age.

He took the lift down to the basement and rolled up the door of his garage. There she was, all silver and beautiful. He traced his fingers over her shiny bonnet. “Hello, sweetheart,” he said. “You miss me? I bet you missed me.” He took the happy thrum of her engine when he turned the ignition as a yes. 

It was kind of dumb, but the day he’d bought Patricia had been kind of the happiest day of Arthur’s life.

It had been a couple of months after he started dating Vivian. He hadn’t really needed a car, because it wasn’t far to the office and driving took about as long as the bus in all the traffic – but he could afford it, so hey, why not?

Mercedes. Convertible. He paid extra for the silver paint job and all the extras they could throw in – car phone? They still made those? Sure, he’d take a car phone). He’d bought the car and driven it straight to Vivian’s flat, ‘cause it was further away than home and he wanted to soak in the lovely new-car smell as long as possible.

He pulled up outside her building and got out his phone. “Hey, babes,” he said. “I don’t think this is going to work out. There’s this other woman in my life now…” He let it trail off, and Viv knew him well enough to know he was kidding, though she still squawked like he was serious. “Come to the window, babes,” he said. She came to the window, and squealed down the phone when he waved to her from behind Patricia’s wheel.

“It’s _gorgeous_ ,” she said, practically bouncing in the passenger seat. “I _love_ convertibles. How did you know I love convertibles?”

“Lucky guess,” said Arthur. She flung her arms around his neck and kissed him.

He let her plug her iPod into the dock and pick whatever music she wanted, engine idling to keep it running. “I’ve named her already,” he said.

“What are you going to call her?” said Vivian, flicking through her colourful albums.

“Patricia,” said Arthur lovingly.

Vivian paused in her flicking and stared at him, face twisted into a sneer. “Patricia? Really?”

“What’s wrong with Patricia?” said Arthur, hurt.

“Patricia’s not a car name,” said Vivian. “It’s an old lady name.”

Arthur covered Patricia’s air conditioning vents like they were her ears. “Don’t listen to her, baby.” Vivian scoffed. “Look, do you want to put the roof down and drive into town for lunch or do you want to bitch on the curb?”

“Patricia’s a lovely name,” said Vivian.

He drove Patricia to the office and parked her in his usual parking spot; he was pleased to see it was still empty. No need to yell at anyone.

It was eight fifty-five. He checked in with his father’s assistant and sat down outside the office to wait. Uther Pendragon did not see people a minute earlier or later than they’d agreed, not even his son.

Nine o’clock ticked round, and Arthur went into the office. 

“Good morning, sir,” he said.

“Arthur,” said his father crisply from behind the desk. He did not get up. “We have matters to discuss.”

Nine o’clock to nine fifteen, the email had said, which seemed a little brief to Arthur; but his father had always been concise.

“Please,” he said, gesturing at the chair. “Sit.”

Arthur sat. “Long time no see,” he said, trying to keep it light. 

“Yes,” was all his father said.

Arthur cleared his throat. “You know, I, er,” he said. “I kind of thought you’d come to see me. In hospital.”

“I’m a very busy man.”

But I’m your son, Arthur wanted to say. I’m your son, and I almost died. I almost died twice in as many weeks. And you’re not that busy. You could have delegated. But he couldn’t say that. His father was staring at him intently as if sizing him up, staring at him the way Arthur had seen him stare at potential clients and interviewees.

What he said was, “Right. Well.”

Whatever else he had been going to say died on his lips when his father pushed a sheath of papers across the table, fingertips just barely touching the paper. “I brought you here this morning to give you this.” He took his fingers away before Arthur could reach for the papers.

He cast his eye over the first few lines and something in him clenched with horrified disbelief. He felt the wolf, what little he could feel of the wolf through the meds, seethe.

“You’re firing me.” His voice shook.

“Arthur.” His father’s voice as comforting as it ever got, the way he used to talk to Arthur when he was a kid. “It’s company policy. You know that.”

“But –”

“You did read the policy, didn’t you?”

“I –”

“It’s all quite clear.”

“But I’m your _son_ ,” said Arthur.

“No exceptions,” said his father.

But nothing had changed; he was still Arthur. He could barely even feel the wolf through the pills. He didn’t think the infection could have taken all the way, because he still felt like himself. It hadn’t got into his brain to do… whatever it was it did to werewolves. But he couldn’t say any of that. He couldn’t.

“What am I supposed to do?” he asked instead.

“I suggest you seek other employment,” said his father dryly, as if it were obvious. “I suggest you sign the papers there if you want your severance pay.” He waited for Arthur to sign, and then handed him still more paperwork. “It’s all been handled.”

Arthur looked through the paperwork, eyes blurring, and reflected that he should have expected this. He knew how his father felt about werewolves. How he felt about werewolves. They were subhuman. They were halfway between man and animal. It was only ten years or so ago that they’d been given the legal right to inherit property, and his father had been a staunch and vocal opposer of the new law, as he had been with all pro-supernatural laws.

“You’re cutting me off,” he said.

The family lawyer, Agravaine, was waiting outside to handle Arthur’s side of the proceedings. Arthur had known Agravaine since he was a kid. He was like family. He signed on the dotted line and none of them were family, not any more.

According to his phone it was 09:21 when he left the building. He sat behind Patricia’s wheel, keys in hand, until 09:46, unable to summon the will to drive home.

He stared at the building till his vision went all blurred. Pendragon Inc had been his job – and his life – and his future – and now he wasn’t even allowed to set foot on any of their property. Because of a goddamn _fucking_ company retreat. He beat his head against the steering wheel till the horn blared.

“I take it it didn’t go so well,” said Morgana when he got home. He was slumped against the door, head in hands.

“He fired me,” said Arthur. Morgana started to react. He talked over her. “And,” he said. “And he cut me off.”

Morgana, bless her, Morgana had got out years ago, of her own volition; but she understood. She understood how much it meant to Arthur, and she hugged him, and she said, “Shit. Shit, I’m so sorry. I didn’t think he’d go that far.”

“It’s company policy,” said Arthur, voice muffled by her hair.

Alone in the living room while she made lunch, he called Vivian. It’d been way too long since he’d spoken to her. He missed her. He was starting to wonder why she’d not been in touch.

The phone rang for a last time. At last she answered, all casual-like. “Arthur! Hi.”

“Hi, babes,” he said. “How’s it going?” He wasn’t sure what else to say.

“Good, good,” she said. Or she sounded casual, but he knew her well enough to hear how strained her voice was.

There was a pause.

“Well, I guess you know how I’ve been,” he said.

“Yeah, I heard,” she said. “Are you in hospital still?”

“No, I checked out on Friday,” he said. “I just spoke to my father.”

“Oh?” That sounded like disinterest, but it wasn’t. She really didn’t know what to say to him. He didn’t blame her. He wouldn’t know what to say either.

“I’m fired.” He slumped back on the sofa and said it again, because it still hadn’t sunk in. “I’m fired. He fired me.”

“That sucks,” said Vivian.

“Look,” said Arthur. “Are you are at work? Do you maybe feel like doing something tonight? ‘Cause I could really use –” The line buzzed softly. “Viv? You there?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Yeah. Look, Arthur – about us.” And Arthur knew what she was going to say before she said it. He knew. He’d known before he’d called her. He’d known from her gaping absence the whole time he was in hospital. “I think it’d be better for both of us if we, y’know, starting seeing other people.”

He knew what she was going to say, but it still hurt. Not because he was madly in love with her or anything, but because of why she was saying it. He knew why she was saying it.

“You’re dumping me,” he said.

“No!” said Vivian. “Well. Yes. Sorry. You understand, don’t you, sweetheart? After what happened – this just isn’t going to work.”

“Nothing has to change,” Arthur said weakly. “I’m still the same person, Vivian. I’m not – whatever you think I am, I’m not. I’m just Arthur. Babes, please.”

“I’m sorry, I thought you’d understand,” she said.

Arthur sank deeper into the sofa, coiling in on himself. “Were you even going to call me?” he snapped. “Or were you just gonna blank me? Is that what you were going to do?”

The line hummed. “Arthur, I’m sorry, I have to go,” she said. “I’m at work, and my supervisor wants me – you know how it is –”

“Viv, wait –”

She hung up the phone.

Arthur sat on the sofa and clutched one of his cushions to his chest – one of the ridiculous furry ones Morgana had given him for his birthday back when he was still a student.

Morgana came back into the room and held out a mug. “I made you some tea,” she said.

Arthur took the mug, enjoying the warm feel of it in his hands. “Thanks.”

She sat down beside him, curled up and rested her head on his shoulder. “What did Vivian say?”

The truth dried up in Arthur’s throat. “She said she’s busy.”

“Busy, huh?” said Morgana. They sat a while and quietly drank their tea. “Want me to stay longer?”

“No, you go,” said Arthur. “You have a life to get back to.”

*

He phoned Lancelot in the evening. “Lance! Hi. How’s it going?”

“Good!” said Lancelot. “I heard you were out of hospital.”

“Yeah,” said Arthur. “Want to do something this evening? Or tomorrow. I’m not fussed. I miss you guys, yeah?”

Lancelot was quiet. He cleared his throat. “Listen, Arthur,” he said, and Arthur’s heart sank like a soggy biscuit in hot tea. “Your father sent a memo round the whole office last week. He’s changed company policy – look, he says that if any of us stay in touch with you he’ll have us fired.”

Arthur blanked. His mind turned white. No, his father couldn’t have done that. They weren’t just his co-workers, they were his team. They were his _friends_. “He said that in a memo?”

“The new policy is that associating with vampires and wer- with what you are is now a firing offence.”

And it was aimed at Arthur. Of course it was. 

“I’m sorry, Arthur,” said Lancelot. “I’m really, really sorry. I just – we talked about it, and –”

Arthur understood. Hell, he’d have done the same. He wished he could have said he wouldn’t have, but the dirty truth was he’d have done it rather than leave Pendragon Inc. 

“S’okay,” he said. “I get it.”

“Arthur, I –”

He hung up the phone.

Things Arthur had on Friday:

1\. A gorgeous girlfriend  
2\. A great job  
3\. A future  
4\. A life

Things Arthur had on Monday:

1\. A stack of paperwork indicating his disinheritance  
2\. An official appointment to go to the SRC for his first full moon  
3\. Scarcely a friend in the world

He thought that that was the worst it was going to get. Truly, he did. That evening on the sofa, it did not feel like it could be any worse.

The full moon was that weekend. He’d been given a leaflet explaining what to do. He read it carefully and packed an overnight bag.

He signed in at the front desk and was given the key to his ‘suite’; two rooms and access to a shared bathroom. The delightfully-named ‘recovery room’: a bed, a shelf, a basket to put his clothes, and a sink. A heavy, steel-lined door lead to the other room. A sign on the wall said, in red, glaring letters, that the door would shut automatically at one minute before moonlight and he’d better be on the correct side of it. The small print said that more than three slip-ups could lose him use of the ‘facilities’.

The other room – he couldn’t bear to think of it as the ‘transformation room’, not yet – was empty and windowless but for some vents near the ceiling. There was an armoured security camera. There was nothing else. Arthur turned a slow circle in it, still in his clothes, feeling numb as anything. The walls weren’t quite bare. They were marked here and there with thin lines scored into the concrete, shallow and deep, criss-crossing and over-lapping, some of them painted over, some of them not.

Claw-marks. 

What was going to happen hit him like a physical blow to the stomach, and he was almost sick right there on the floor of the ‘transformation room’.

He looked at the clock and realised he only had five minutes left. He raced back to the recovery room, stripped off his clothes, and ended up standing in the transformation room, shivering and naked, for what felt like an age.

It wasn’t till the final alert was pinging and the door began to hum closed that he realised he’d forgotten to take off his wrist watch, the watch his father had given him for his twenty-first. The door slammed closed. It was too late. He tried to take it off anyway, thinking it might be safe if he left it in a corner or something, but his fingers wouldn’t do what he told them to. They were shaking and clumsy, and it had already started; it had started and he hadn’t noticed.

The feeling spread from his fingers and toes to his arms and legs. They felt as if they did not belong to him anymore; he stared down at his body and watched as his knees and then his thighs became a stranger’s. It was a nasty sensation, but it didn’t hurt at all. He’d expected it to hurt.

The disassociation reached his head, plunging him into a loose muzziness that was almost pleasant; and then inside him he felt things moving, felt his bones and organs grating and shifting, and then it began to hurt; it began to hurt worse than anything else had ever hurt; it hurt so bad he was sure he must be dying, that his body was tearing itself apart (and it would take three full moons for him to stop thinking that). He was aware of the cold concrete enveloping his skin, of a final jarring shift, and then nothing.

He woke with his cheek pressed against the concrete floor and to the sound of the door whirring open. An alarm was beeping. He opened his eyes and blinked until his vision cleared. He peeled himself off the floor and knelt, the concrete hard against his knees.

His body felt like his own again, though he was plastered in sweat and there was blood on his knuckles. Blood on his knuckles, and streaks of blood here and there, on the wall, on the floor. Streaks of blood, and new scratches. He traced the closest ones. They were deep, and they had not been there last night. Claw marks. His claws. His marks.

He wanted to be sick. He was very nearly sick in the sink, but nothing would come up. He got dressed with shaking hands and went to use one of the cubicles in the communal shower. They were decent showers, and he tried, fraily, to give that to himself as a reason why things were looking up.

He turned the shower up hot, rested his forehead against the wall of the cubicle, and breathed. It hadn’t been real until now. It had not been real. Being a werewolf was something that had happened to him, but transforming was something that happened to other people. Except he’d done it. There’d be security footage of him somewhere to prove it.

He declined to speak to a counsellor about the experience, declined the offer of food, and went home to his empty flat. This was it, he thought; this was as bad as it could get. His condition had taken away everything up to and including his control over his body. He took his morning pills and cooked himself all the bacon and eggs in the fridge. No, it couldn’t get any worse; and if it couldn’t get any worse, then surely it could only get better.

*

Ways it got worse: Arthur’s finances were all wrapped up in Pendragon Inc and with his father. Without them, and with no income, he was fucked faster that he could ever have imagined.

His flat was rented. It had been his father’s idea, renting when they could afford to buy; it had been supposed to teach him some financial responsibility. Try as he might, cutting down on expenses like his gym membership and a variety of internet subscriptions he never used, and his shiny, all-inclusive phone contract, he couldn’t pay rent. He applied for jobs, office jobs, jobs he was clearly qualified for; none of them would take him. None of them would even give him an interview, and though none of them would admit it he could guess why. More ashamed than he had ever been, he applied for housing benefits, and got them; but he still couldn’t make rent. He defaulted two months in a row, and though he went to the fancy office where his letting agent lurked and begged – practically on his fucking knees – he had to move out.

Flat-hunting didn’t take long. He told himself that it was temporary, that he’d be back on his feet in no time, and moved into the first flat he could afford even if it was tiny and grotty. Ground floor. Scrap of communal garden that was empty but for scraggly grass and long-discarded lawn furniture. He didn’t consider the other residents of the building till he was already moved in, but they were a bunch of weirdos and supernaturals. It freaked him out; he kept forgetting he fell into that category too, now.

“I’m glad to hear you’re coping,” his counsellor said in their last follow-up session. ‘Coping’ was not the word Arthur would have used. More like ‘surviving’. “How’s the job search going?”

“Not so well,” said Arthur. He hadn’t even got his foot in the door yet, though he was still applying for jobs. The people at the job centre were breathing down his neck, but none of them would say what the counsellor said next.

“You might need to lower your prospects. The kind of jobs you’re applying for, they might not be the best option for someone with your condition.”

_Yeah, I noticed_ , said Arthur, but he couldn’t say that aloud. He wasn’t ready to admit how fucked he was yet. “I’ll find something.” The counselor told him, cheerily, to keep looking.

He sat in the waiting room afterwards to see the nurse and have his blood pressure checked – that was a big problem for werewolves, apparently, blood pressure – his was way above average for a human now and could climb higher if he wasn’t careful. He sat, and he tried not to look at the other people waiting. Some of them didn’t look human, but worse were the ones that did. He tried not to look too hard, because when he looked he could tell which ones were werewolves by something intangible that he couldn’t pin down, and he could smell the vampires from the other side of the waiting room.

He drove Patricia home and parked her a street away from his new flat – there was never parking space outside, he missed his garage, he’d had to wash bird shit off her twice already – and went inside. The stairwells were reeking again. He’d asked the neighbour across the hall – a tiny wizened old man – and been told that it was a ghoul that made the smell, a ghoul who lived in the basement flat. “If you hear wailing,” the old man had said, “that’ll be the ghoul. Her name’s Augusta. She doesn’t get out much.”

A coven of witches lived in one of the upstairs flats who ignored Arthur every time they saw him on the stairwell. In the other was a very friendly Latvian family, the only normal people in the building. Arthur had a feeling they knew he was a werewolf, though he wasn’t sure how they knew. Anyway, they were nothing but sympathetic. Mrs Balodis kept inviting him over for tea, but he always declined, because he’d never eaten Latvian food and he wasn’t sure he’d like it and also, werewolf. Werewolves didn’t have tea with nice families.

It was Mrs Balodis who got Arthur his job at the end. He ran into her in the stair well on the way home from a meeting at the job centre. “Oh, are you still unemployed?” she said, and when he nodded said, “oh, I tell you – my nephew works at Ikea. He works in the warehouse. He says they’re looking for people to work the shop floor. You want I ask him to recommend you?”

“Oh,” said Arthur, “that’s,” really not the kind of job he was looking for, sort of beneath him, fucking _IKEA_ , c’mon, he was a businessman, “really nice of you. Thanks. Yeah.” As simple a statement as it was, it felt sour in his mouth. Another part of ‘nothing has to change’ withered away into dust.

“I’ll call him,” she said. “You look after yourself, now. You’re such a nice boy. Are you sure you won’t come for tea?” Arthur thanked her profusely, but he wouldn’t. “I’ll cook for you. I’ll bring it down for you. You need looking after, I think.”

So she brought him dinner, and he ate it, and washed up the plate and left it outside their door with a thank-you note; and she was as good as her word, because a few days later she put an IKEA application through his letter box.

He got his first job interview in – well, ever, actually. They didn’t seem to mind that his work history so clearly made him over-qualified; because, well, it was obvious why he couldn’t do that kind of work anymore, wasn’t it? Werewolves didn’t get good jobs. Werewolves did menial labour.

The werewolf thing only came up once. “This is a customer-facing job,” said the interviewer. “How are you with people?”

“I’m fine with people,” said Arthur. “I worked in chemists when I was a teenager –”

“I mean since you’ve had your condition,” said the interviewer. Condition, it rolled right off his tongue. He was more used to saying it than Arthur was. And fuck, they were asking if his condition made him antisocial, or violent, or whatever else werewolves were supposed to be.

“I’m still fine with people,” said Arthur, because he was.

So there he was with a job in Ikea, on the shop floor, and a set of matching blue and yellow work-shirts. He got a name badge at the end of his first week. It wasn’t as if it was so bad. Only downside was that having a job meant no more housing benefit. He had to make rent on his own, and it was a two-bed flat. It hadn’t seemed especially extravagant when he’d moved in, but now he realised, belatedly, that he was gonna need a flatmate. Ugh. Flatmates. He’d started living alone as soon as he’d left uni. He preferred living alone.

But he put up ads on all the websites he could find. He put up ads, and selected ‘non-smoking’ and ‘werewolf-friendly’ from the drop-down lists. And his ads sat there, languishing, no matter how much he bumped them.

He struggled with his rent, no matter how much he cut down on necessities. It didn’t help that his time was up and he had to pay for his pills himself now.

The effects of the pills had been immediate. He’d almost forgotten what it was like to be unmedicated. The sensations were associated so strongly with his time in the hospital and its general horribleness. It was good stuff. It kept the wolf manageable and his senses down to something approaching normal. There were a few things that were naggingly different – alcohol, alcohol tasted different, and being drunk felt different (he’d thrown caution to the wind and started drinking, pills be damned); cheese more often than not made him gag; the smell of his shampoo made his nostrils burn, but he had to switch to a cheaper brand anyway so it didn’t matter – but the most glaring of them all was vampires.

Vampires stank. He hated it – not so much the smell itself as being able to smell it. They smelled like death and he hated that he knew what death smelled like. He could tolerate it in the SRC waiting room because hey, he sort of expected that place to smell like death, but now and again he’d pass a vampire on the street and it’d be like walking into a wall of rank death stink (they didn’t look any different; he’d had a notion it was possible to tell who was a vampire by looking, but it wasn’t. Man in smart suit – vampire. Teenage girl in beanie hat and hipster glasses – vampire. Unattended kid in unseasonal sundress – vampire. Old lady on park bench feeding pigeons – vampire, and that was an odd one, during the day and everything. She’d been all swaddled up against the sun.) 

He was six months deep into being a werewolf when it got truly awful. He passed a group of guys – three lads, the kind of blokes who wouldn’t be out of place in his old rugby club – and god, but they reeked. They were vampires, all of them. He couldn’t help but pull a face, an eww face, and he looked away but not quickly enough. Vampires had sharp vision, apparently.

“Hey,” said one of the lads as he hurried on. “Hey!” Arthur stopped and turned around, never one to back down. “You starting something?” said the lad.

“Really not,” said Arthur. He was just on his way home from work.

The lad strode down the pavement towards Arthur, his two friends taking up the rear. Arthur’s nostrils burned. Suppressed as it was, the wolf was screaming at him to run, and he had half a mind to listen, but he didn’t want to encourage them to chase him.

“You thinking that we smell?” said the lad. “Don’t think that we didn’t notice. We noticed, right?” The other two vampires nodded and growled in agreement.

Arthur held up his hands. “Hey. Sorry. I can’t help it if you smell.”

The lad laughed and Arthur thought he might have got away with it; but then the laugh turned into a snarl. The vampire took Arthur by the collar of his jacket and shoved him back roughly with enough force that it hurt.

In retrospect it was obvious that he should have apologised then and waited for them to leave, but he didn’t have that shit figured out yet. He reckoned he could handle it. He was still in the mindset where he had a team at his back.

He shoved the vampire right back. It was like shoving a stone pillar. He didn’t give, just chuckled. His stink intensified. Later Arthur figured out that he’d been smelling the vampire’s rage and want to throw up at the thought.

They dragged him into the nearest alley and slammed him into the wall beside the bins, the two friends holding him in place while the lad-vampire leered at his face. “You really don’t want to start something with me,” he leered. “This whole block is our territory, right? You don’t want to fuck with us, ‘less you want all the legions of hell on your tail.”

“I don’t have a tail,” Arthur choked out. The vampires holding him sniggered.

“Keep barking, doggie,” said one. The other one yipped, and Arthur burned. He struggled, but they were stronger than him by a long way. They laughed harder, and the one who had yipped did a mock-howl. 

“I know your type,” said the vampire. “On the pills, right? Keeps you more dog than wolf, right?”

“Piss off,” Arthur panted.

The vampire chuckled again. He made a move as if he was going to leave, then darted back and, without any warning at all, socked Arthur in the stomach so hard he threw up a little.

The vampires released him and he fell to the floor, retched, clutching his bruised abdomen. They slunk away onto the street, laughing, without another word to him except a quick bout of howling.

The bruises on his stomach and the scrapes on his head where they’d had him against the wall healed pretty damn fast. His pride was slower. But at the same time he couldn’t help but see it as confirmation; vampires were as fucking evil as they said. Vampires were scum. 

 

His ad had been up for over a month with no takers. He’d cut down on all his expenses. He’d traded in his laptop for second hand. He’d sold a bunch of clothes on eBay. But now it was three days till rent day and he was gonna fall behind if he didn’t think of something. He called his letting agent. “So the day rent’s due – that’s, er, non-negotiable, right?”

Yes, said the person on the other end of the phone. Why do you ask? Are you in dire financial straits?

“No!” said Arthur, in case they were gonna kick him out like the last lot. “Hell, no. I just wanted to check – I need to move some money around but I can – bring things forward. Yeah. It’ll be fine. I just wanted to check.” He said good-bye politely, hung up the phone, and slammed his head down on the table. He wanted to cry. He wanted to throw up. He couldn’t lose another flat, even a shitty one. Shit, he’d thought it was bad last time, but now he was teetering on the brink of homelessness. Maybe he’d have to go to the SRPVWW for help, if he couldn’t think of anything. Could he take out a loan? How would he pay it back? Did they let werewolves take out loans?

He sat at the kitchen table and toyed with his keys as he thought, and thought, and thought, trying desperately to come up with something. Something. _Anything_.

Then he looked at his keys, looked properly, and _something_ came to him; the last thing in the world he wanted to do – but barring miracles the only thing left to do.

The next morning he drove to the used car dealership and sat behind Patricia’s wheel, trying not to cry. He ran his fingers over her steering wheel. He’d cleared his stuff out already. This was it. “I’m sorry, babes,” he said to her. “I’m sorry. I wish I didn’t have to –” He rested his forehead against the steering wheel and breathed. What if whoever bought her didn’t treat her right? What if they didn’t appreciate her? What if they couldn’t see that she wasn’t just a car?

She wasn’t just a car; she was the one constant left, the one thing from his old life he still had – but _fuck_ he needed the money. He needed the money so bad.

“Oh, come on,” he said to the salesman. “She’s worth more than that. I paid more than that!”

The salesman shrugged. “Take it or leave it.”

Arthur looked at Patricia, parked outside the garage. He thought of the forms they’d made him fill out first. He’d never realised just how many forms had a check-box marked ‘werewolf’. He’d seen them, sure, but he’d always just skimmed on past. But they were everywhere. You’re a werewolf? We have to know. Even if it’s not relevant. Even if it’s none of our business. We’ve always got to know. His body was always other people’s business, now, and he hated it. He wanted to kick his heels against the ground and scream at the injustice because this wasn’t him, this wasn’t his life – he wasn’t like other werewolves, it wasn’t fair.

If he’d been a used car salesman, would he have fucked someone over if he had paperwork saying he was a werewolf? Yeah, he probably would. What were they going to do? They should be glad they had the right to be owning a car, right?

“Fine,” he snapped. “Fine! I’ll take it.” He signed his name on the dotted line and put the keys in the salesman’s sweaty palm.

Or rather, he held the keys two inches about the salesman’s car while he contemplated whether it was too late to back out. A lump rose in his throat. Maybe he could keep Patricia. There was another way, right?

He dropped the keys. The salesman thanked him and took them away, casual as anything. Arthur stood and watched as they rolled Patricia away into the garage. Then he walked away, scrounging in his pockets for change for the bus trip home.

Three days later he was cooking beans for dinner and talking to Morgana on the phone. “No, I’m alright,” he said. “I don’t need any help. I’m good for rent till – I dunno, at least another month.”

“You sure?” said Morgana. “’Cause you said –”

“I’m _fine_ ,” said Arthur, and when Morgana made a clucking noise with her tongue, “look, I sold my car, alright? I’m good for at least another month.”

“Oh, my god,” said Morgana. “You sold Patricia?” Arthur shrugged, even though she couldn’t see. “Shit, Arthur. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” said Arthur hotly. “It was just a car.” He shoved his bread in the toaster so forcefully that it cracked and shoved down the plunger.

“You should have said,” said Morgana. “I’d have helped you out.”

“I’m not borrowing money,” said Arthur. Because when would he be able to pay her back? And even if she said it wouldn’t matter, it would.

“You still looking for a flatmate, right?”

“I put the ads up,” said Arthur.

“You ought to put up more,” said Morgana. “Did you try Gumtree?” Arthur made an uncertain sound and held the phone between his chin and his shoulder so he could stir his beans. “Don’t make noises at me. I know you like living alone but you need a flatmate.”

“Yeah, I know, I know,” said Arthur. “Look, I’ll bump my ads up again, okay? I’m just – busy with things.”

He wasn’t, though. He had no social life outside work and occasional chats with Mrs Balodis upstairs and phonecalls from Morgana. He had no money for anything outside of necessities, like food and his pills. What he had was a solid routine of bus to work – work all day – come home – switch on the TV and drink till tired. And yeah he was probably spending too much money on booze but he needed it. He really did need it.

“Just take care of yourself, okay?” said Morgana. “I’m worried about you.”

“I’m fine,” said Arthur.

He duly bumped up his ads that evening, and considered – seriously considered – removing the ‘werewolf friendly’ part. But it wasn’t worth the risk of ending up with someone who’d hate his guts.

And as it happened, it wasn’t necessary, ‘cause the very next Saturday morning he got a phone call.


	2. In which Arthur gets a new flatmate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The vampire was downright – well – dorky looking. He was dressed like a hipster – no, he was dressed like somebody’s grandpa trying to _look_ like a hipster._

“Hi,” said a hazy-sounding voice. The line was weirdly staticky.

“Hi?” said Arthur, confused. He hardly ever got calls from unknown numbers. It had been so long that he’d given up on ever getting a call back about his ads.

“I’m, er, calling about your ad,” said the voice, and Arthur’s heart leapt. He sat up straighter on the sofa. “Is that still open? Starting immediately?”

“Yeah,” said Arthur. “Yes. It’s still very much open.”

“Cool!” said the voice, static buzzing. “Cool, cool. Can I come over and take a look?”

“Sure,” said Arthur. “I’ll be in all day, if you’re nearby.” The guy on the other end of the line named a road that was just a few streets away, then stuttered about finding a pen to write down Arthur’s address.

“I’ll be over this evening,” he said brightly. “See you!” 

He hung up, and Arthur sat back on the sofa, hardly able to believe it. Someone actually wanted to live with him. The thought of having the other half of the rent paid danced golden before his eyes. Not having to teeter on the brink of bankruptcy every rent day. It seemed too good to be true. He was holding his breath for the whole time between hanging up the phone and the door bell ringing.

And yeah, it was too good to be true. Of course it was too good to be true. Arthur opened the door and was hit in the face by a wall of stench. He barely even registered their face, through the smell of death coming off them. “No,” he said firmly, and slammed the door. The guy – the goddamn _vampire_ – was alarmingly persistent. He knocked again. “ _What_?” said Arthur. He thought he’d made himself perfectly clear.

“I’m here about the room.” The vampire held up a tatty black-and-white print out of one of Arthur’s ads.

“Yeah, I know,” said Arthur. “I said _no_. Now, go away.” He waited for the vampire to leave. He wanted to actually see him go.

“You can’t turn me down,” the vampire pouted. “You don’t even know my name. Can I at least see the flat?”

Arthur snorted. Like hell he could. He knew enough about vampires to know that the invitation rule was a real thing. “You can’t come in unless I invite you.”

The vampire fixed him with a very effective death glare – but not a very alarming one. Now that Arthur was looking at him properly rather than just smelling him, he was downright – well – dorky looking. He was dressed like a hipster – no, he was dressed like somebody’s grandpa trying to _look_ like a hipster. He had an atrocious haircut and ears like Dumbo. But his eyes were piercing as hell. “You could invite me.”

Arthur slammed the door. The vampire stopped it with his foot. “Look,” he said. “This isn’t exactly ideal for me either, but I’m out of options, and I bet you are too.”

“What makes you think I’m out of options?” said Arthur, even though he really, really was and he was beginning to have a sinking feeling that he’d regret turning this down.

“Face it, no-one wants to live with you because you’re – you know, and no-one wants to live with me because I’m – well, you know.” He started gabbling something about his brother – huh, Arthur didn’t know vampires could have brothers, maybe he meant it figuratively – and about how he _totally_ couldn’t be homeless. “Besides, you’d hardly even notice me. I’m nocturnal.”

“I’m not having a _vampire_ in my flat,” said Arthur. “You’ll be loud all night and you’ll make everything stink.”

“Are you saying I smell?” said the vampire, all indignant. Arthur scoffed. His nostrils were still burning. “Can you please think about it? I have references! They’re a bit old, but they’ll do, right?”

“I’m not having you in here,” said Arthur. “You’ll probably kill me in my sleep. No, thanks.”

“Don’t be disgusting. Ew. That would be gross,” said the vampire. “Besides I’m on the wagon!” He held up his wrist, proudly displaying a SPRWW ID bracelet. “Sixty-three years and counting.” Arthur stood his ground. “What, so you’re scared, then?”

And Arthur was, a bit – but c’mon. This kid – ‘cause he looked for all the world like a kid – had to be the most harmless-looking vampire he’d ever seen, including small children and old ladies. “Of you?” 

“You are, aren’t you?” said the vampire. And he kept on taunting till Arthur lost his cool and invited him in without even meaning to. He pushed on into the flat and started looking around like he had every right to be there. 

“Get out of my flat!” said Arthur. Shit, he should have tidied up. It was just a vampire but still, the place was a shithole and the guy was sure to judge. “I uninvite you! Now leave!”

“You can’t uninvite me,” sneered the vampire. “Deal with it.” 

Arthur couldn’t help growling. Smell of a vampire mixed with frustration made the wolf all antsy – plus he was supposed to be taking his pills about now. “Down, boy,” said the vampire.

Arthur wanted to swing a punch, but he went for low insults instead. “Shut up, Edward Cullen. You’ve seen the flat now, alright? Now get out. I’ll get back to you.”

“Okay, look,” said the vampire. He held up his hands as if Arthur were being the unreasonable one. “You’ve been looking for a flatmate since you moved in, yeah? How much longer can you afford to keep paying the rent on your own?” Arthur cringed. “You need someone to pay the other half of the rent. I need somewhere that isn’t full of frogspawn and radioactive waste. See my point?”

It was the ‘frogspawn and radioactive waste’ that did it. Arthur’s brain ground to a painful halt, trying to figure out what the hell kind of living situation this kid could be in and drawing a blank. Frogspawn. And. Radioactive. Waste.

“Don’t ask,” said the vampire. “I’m just saying, I don’t think either of us can afford to pass this up. What do you say?”

Arthur screwed his eyes shut and did his best to breathe through his mouth. “Sure. Whatever.”

“Great!” said the vampire. He held out his hand for Arthur to shake, then drew it back slowly when Arthur just stared. “My name’s Merlin. After the bird, not the wizard – you’re Arthur, right? I looked at the mailboxes. Neat, huh?”

Yeah, actually, that was pretty neat. Arthur’d never met a Merlin before, for all he knew a weird amount of people with Arthurian kind of names.

“Arthur Pendragon,” he said. And Merlin the dorky vampire smiled, and just like his glare had been weirdly piercing, his smile had a weird way of making his whole face light up.

“Great!” he said. “Can I move in Monday?”

He meant Monday night, obviously. He showed up an hour or so after sunset. Arthur had spent the intervening two days considering re-considering. He wished he had the money to put a lock on his bedroom door. He wished he could afford to say no.

Merlin greeted him with a cheery, “Hi! How’ve you been? Got my stuff!” He gestured at a meagre two boxes and a backpack.

Arthur held out the spare keys and dropped them into Merlin’s palm. He still smelled like death. Ugh. “Empty room’s yours. Make yourself comfortable.” He went back to the living room, where he had half a beer waiting. Merlin shouted something about the warm welcome.

He sat on the sofa and debated turning on the telly. He could hear Merlin shambling about. He hadn’t realised how thin the walls were. After about five minutes he heard a thud and an ow. Arthur reflected on just how low they had sunk. Here they were, the leech and the flea.

“All moved in!” said Merlin brightly from the doorway. Arthur grunted something in response. “I can give you the first month’s rent now if you like.”

“Tomorrow’s fine.” He stared at the television. He could see the doorway reflected in the screen – and no Merlin, obviously. Not something he’d ever seen in action before. Ugh. Merlin started asking questions about the flat and the area and shit like that. Arthur – magnanimously, he thought – gave him a run-down on the neighbours, then turned back to the television and squinted at the place where Merlin should be. What must that be like, not being able to see yourself? Maybe it would have been easier to become a vampire and not have to look himself in the eye every day.

“Latvians? Really?” said Merlin. He reflected on that – and really, that was his problem. The one normal, nice family in the building. He didn’t reflect for long, though. He clucked his tongue and, with an air of great reluctance, asked Arthur out for breakfast.

It was the way Arthur and his team had used to ask the weird kid from the copy room out. The way that said, yeah, we don’t really want you to come, but we have to ask since you’re here. He shuddered.

The vampire shambled out of his flat. And he was as good as his word, about being nocturnal. He slept while Arthur was at work and went out to work while Arthur was sleeping. With some well-timed ducking and dodging Arthur managed to avoid him altogether.

Really, if he weren’t a vampire he’d have been Arthur’s ideal flatmate. He seemed to have noticed how thin the walls were, ‘cause he kept the noise down – no music and only minimal thumping. The only signs of him being in the flat were the smell in the hallway and the blood in the fridge.

Arthur bought himself a can of air freshener to spray around after Merlin went to work and went to St Mary’s church a few streets away for some Holy Water. The priest seemed remarkably unfazed at being asked to bless a squirty-bottle. Maybe having his church in such a weird area made it a common request.

Between them they were only using two shelves in the fridge. Arthur’s was mostly ready-meals – he’d buy a week’s worth, budgeting carefully, and stack them all up. He missed cooking, and it’d probably be cheaper, but he didn’t have the energy. He was like a sinkhole lately. All his energy and will to do anything except live was draining out the bottom.

Merlin filled up his shelf with bags of blood and a few other bits and pieces. Arthur couldn’t help but poke around. The blood bags mostly had the SPRWW logo on them, but there were a few from the local butcher that looked to be things more interesting than pig blood. Apparently pig blood got samey after a while. Huh.

The other bits and pieces were a tub of margarine, some vile looking smelly cheese that made Arthur’s nose hurt just looking at it, and chilli paste which did likewise. In his cupboard – ‘cause yeah, Arthur was gonna keep snooping – he had a few plates and bowls, plus bread, some cans, and a packet of what it took Arthur a moment to realise were croutons. 

He hadn’t really expected Merlin to eat anything except for blood. His cupboards were the same as the rest of him, a weird blend of human and alien. 

They didn’t speak again till a good four days after he’d moved in. Arthur came home late – he’d not been able to scrape together bus change for his second bus ride, he’d had to walk the rest of the way – and was confronted by the sight of a vampire in his kitchen. A vampire, wandering around and humming to himself like a regular guy making dinner – but it was breakfast, not dinner, and that was blood he was licking off his spoon. 

Blood, which he had poured over a bowl full of cereal. His gaze flicked to Arthur, quick as a fox, or a wolf.

“Are you eating blood and cereal?”

“Yeah. S’good. Crunchy,” said Merlin. He beamed.

“That’s completely disgusting.” Arthur squinted at the bowl, then looked at the worktop. Merlin hadn’t had Shreddies in his cupboard. “Those better not be my Shreddies!”

Merlin shrugged. “Didn’t think you’d mind.”

Arthur threw his bag down on the floor and grabbed the box. “I don’t share food,” he said, waving the box in Merlin’s face. “Not with you. Got it? You want Shreddies, you can buy your own damn Shreddies.”

“Calm down,” said Merlin. “Do you want these ones back?” He shoved the ball under Arthur’s nose. The scent of blood hit him like a slap in the face. He recoiled.

“Don’t use my dishes, either,” he said when he’d recovered. Merlin said, around his spoon, that he had his own dishes. “Just for future reference. I’m not eating anything you’ve got blood on.”

“It’s only pig.” Merlin grinned and shoved the bowl at Arthur again. “You might like it! You’re a carnivore, right?”

He was, a bit. What they’d told him at the SRC was that it was very difficult to be a vegetarian and a werewolf, since you needed so much iron. Arthur hadn’t minded, ‘cause he was a contented meat-eater, but – _eugh_. No.

“You’re grouchy today. Would it help if I rubbed your tummy? Or are you always like this?” 

Arthur wanted to throw the Shreddies at him, but he couldn’t afford to buy another box till he got his next paycheck. He slammed them down on the worktop instead and stormed out of the room like all the vampires from hell were behind him. He switched on the television and flicked through the channels till he heard Merlin leave for work.

The weirdest – grossest – thing about the whole damn living situation was that Merlin was kind of his type.

Arthur had pretty much always known he was bi – he’d just figured it wasn’t worth the trouble, so outside of a few one night stands while he was at uni he just didn’t do it with guys. But his type spanned both sexes, and Merlin was it. It wasn’t even an appearance thing. Maybe it was the way he’d been raised all stoic and repressed, but Arthur found people who wore their feelings all over their face unbearably sexy. Viv had a face like that, and so did Merlin.

If Merlin were human and didn’t reek like an open grave, he’d be unbearably sexy. And that, Arthur reflected as he lay on his bed and gazed up at the ceiling, made the whole sodding business that much worse, and made him hate Merlin even more.

Saturday evening. He’d gotten mildly drunk and gone to bed early, but he was rudely awoken by a banging on his door. He grunted and threw his pillow over his face.

Light streamed into the room, and someone said his name. Arthur was acutely aware that he was alone and vulnerable in a room with a vampire, and also acutely confused. He sat up and rubbed his eyes. 

“Can you come invite my friends in? It doesn’t work when I do it.”

Merlin was bright-eyed and awake, being nocturnal and all, and as was quite often the case Arthur had no idea what he was talking about. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said, and lay back down. He must have actually drifted off for a moment, ‘cause the next thing he knew Merlin was shaking him by the shoulder.

“Look, just come and tell them they can come in, alright?”

“Hell, no. One of you is enough.” Arthur grumbled into the pillow. Merlin continued to ramble about how his friends were _totally_ on the wagon and that they had furniture to put together and further nonsensical bullshit like that.

“I’m not leaving till you invite them,” said Merlin.

“Fine. Stand there and watch me sleep, Cullen,” said Arthur. He ignored Merlin prodding his shoulder and pulled his quilt up around his chin.

“Stop being such a prick,” he was saying. “You don’t even have to get up. Just say that Will and Freya can come in.” Arthur flatly refused. Merlin clucked his tongue and went on. “Look, just put on a shirt so they won’t be horrified by your epic hairiness and come invite them in.”

Arthur couldn’t take another second. He kicked off the covers and glowered. “I do not have _epic hairiness_!” he said. Merlin looked pointedly at his chest hair. Which was perfectly respectable and always had been. “I’ve always had this much hair! Even before I…” His voice dwindled out. He still couldn’t quite bring himself to say it.

Merlin rolled his eyes. “Whatever. You’re hairier than is normal.”

“No, you’re just a hairless wonder.”

“I have chest hair,” said Merlin. “Look!” And then something weird happened where he kept unfastening buttons on his shirt and looking at Arthur in a way that was weirdly _coy_ until Arthur got so irritated that he threw his pillow across the room and got out of bed.

He’d stopped being fazed by how normal-looking most vampires were. Merlin’s two friends could have been any two twenty-somethings Arthur knew – well, no, the people he’d known before he’d been turned had typically been better-dressed. The bloke was in the ubiquitous t-shirt and jeans, but the girl had the same kind of grandma-trying-to-be-down-with-the-kids look as Merlin, only more co-ordinated.

And great, now where were _three_ vampires in his flat. He regretted it the moment they were over the threshold. Now he had a – what was the collective noun for a group of vampires? A coven? A wing? Whatever it was, he had one in his hallway, and one of them had just said something snarky about how Arthur had nothing to do on a Saturday night. Shit, he couldn’t go back to bed. He couldn’t sleep with all Merlin’s vampire friends vampiring in his flat.

As it turned out, _vampiring_ consisted mainly of doing a shitty job of putting an Ikea bookcase together. There was a lot of swearing and Arthur was pretty sure half the screws had got lost under Merlin’s bed but he didn’t say anything until the third time they tried and failed to get the drawers in. “You’ve got the runners on backwards.”

“Oh, what would you know, wolfie?” said the vampire bloke.

Arthur shrugged. “Suit yourself, it won’t work otherwise.”

Merlin muttered something to his vampire friend, and they both sniggered. “Just leave us to it, yeah?” said the vampire. He balled up the instructions and tossed it at Arthur. It sailed past him out the door and pattered on the hall carpet. Arthur didn’t flinch. “Good dog! Fetch!”

Arthur felt his teeth clench; he tried to swallow, but his throat had dried up. He tried to tell himself that it didn’t matter, that they were just fucking _leeches_ , they weren’t even people, what did it matter if they called him names? But there were three of them and one of him, and they were stronger than he was. He turned his back and left the room.

He didn’t sleep well that night, or the next night. Merlin’s friends had left the whole flat stinking of vampire, no matter how hard he scrubbed. He was exhausted Monday, tired enough that one of his co-workers noticed and asked the obvious question. “Jesus, you look awful. Everything alright?”

“Didn’t have the best weekend,” said Arthur.

“Aw,” she cooed. “Want to talk about it?”

“Nah,” said Arthur. “Just didn’t sleep much.” She asked how come. “Because my flat’s full of _fucking_ vampires.”

His co-worker blinked. “Wait, what?”

“I live with a vampire and he had friends over.” Arthur rubbed the last few scraps of sleep out of his eyes. Yeah, his problems were not normal people’s problems. They hadn’t been for a while.

“That sucks,” she said. “Hey, take this up to the office for me?”

Merlin didn’t let up with the dog thing. He kept calling Arthur stupid, shitty names till Arthur started to get numb to it. Things already sucked more than usual, and then the full moon came around again. Full moons were starting to be the pins around which he oriented the rest of his life – what life he had. He had an arrangement with his supervisor that he wouldn’t be in the day after the full moon every month. That was about the sum of the organising that needed doing.

In the wake of his body tearing itself apart and re-shaping itself, living with Merlin didn’t seem that bad – and the light of his life, Morgana, called right after the full moon, and not just for their usual chat, though she let Arthur moan about work for a while. But not about Merlin and his vampire friends. He’d told her he’d found a flatmate, but he hadn’t told her Merlin was a vampire.

“I have news for you,” she said. “I’m flying out to London next week. I’ll be around for a few days. Is Tuesday night good?”

Arthur’s heart lifted in his chest – properly soared, like a bird. He hadn’t seen Morgana since right after – he hadn’t seen Morgana since right after. He looked down at himself, at his stained t-shirt; he looked around the ratty, gross kitchen; he looked across the hallway at the mess of boxes that was the living room; he touched his three-day beard self-consciously.  
“Arthur? Sweetheart? You there?”

“Oh, sorry,” he said. “Sorry. Got – distracted. Tuesday night’s great. How come you’re coming to London?

“I’m not, really,” she said. “Jackie – you remember Jackie? – she’s getting married in Kent. I’m invited to the wedding.” She made a noise like that was just awful. Intolerable. Like she hated weddings – actually, she did hate weddings, it wasn’t a total lie.

Yeah, Arthur remembered Jackie. She was one of Morgana’s exes, one that she’d stayed friends with. Arthur had always kind of been friends with Jackie too. But he hadn’t been invited to her wedding. There was no use pretending his invite might have been lost in the post. No, he was properly not welcome. It wasn’t fair. Morgana hated weddings, but Arthur liked them. He’d always liked weddings.

“Wow, that sounds like a drag,” he said. “How’s Jackie? Well, getting married, obviously.”

“I’m flying in Tuesday morning,” Morgana said a bit later. “Can you give me your new address? Can I come over for dinner?” Arthur gave her the address and listened to the scribble of her pen as she wrote it down. 

“But, with my flatmate, you definitely can’t stay here ‘cause-”

“Don’t worry, I’m getting a hotel,” she said. “Alright. Talk soon, okay?”

So with the shining light that was Morgana’s visit looming, things didn’t seem so bad – until the night he caught Merlin rummaging through his stuff. Which, in retrospect, was when things really started to go to hell. He was woken up by the sound of mysterious rattlings and jinglings, and he walked into the sitting room to find Merlin rooting through his boxes in the dark like a fox going through bins. “What the hell are you _doing_?”

Merlin said he was unpacking, as if Arthur’s stuff was his to unpack. “This,” he gestured at Arthur’s mess of boxes, “is getting ridiculous. You need more furniture in here.”

Trouble was, he was right; that was why it made Arthur seethe so much. Arthur’s life was an aching, empty mess, and yeah, maybe trying to move into the flat properly would be the first rung on the ladder of fixing it, but then what? What after unpacking? More fucking nothing, that was what. He tore a box marked _kitchen misc_. out of Merlin’s hands and yelled at him to leave his stuff be. 

“It’s all in boxes!” Merlin wailed. “All over the floor! It’s a mess!”

“That’s how I like it,” said Arthur. “If you move it around I won’t be able to find anything. Now get out of my living room.” 

Merlin did not get out. He started blithering away about Ikea instead, which meant he somehow got Arthur to admit that he worked there and that set him off about meatballs; and when Arthur dared to get frustrated, he said, “Alright, calm down. Bad dog. Sit!”

Arthur was so angry he felt the wolf twist inside him, like it was trying to get out. He closed his eyes and tried to breathe, tried to hold it down. Fucking Merlin, bringing out the worst in him. “If you make one more doggie joke, I will punch you in the fucking face. Do you understand?” 

Merlin laughed, like Arthur’s condition was just another joke, and asked if he could stack the boxes neatly. 

“If it bothers you that much, stay out of here. Keep to your own room.” 

Merlin whined that the television was in the living room. Arthur manhandled him out into the hall.

“You really are a massive prick, you know that?” said Merlin once Arthur let go of him. Arthur glared, and kept on glaring till Merlin went back to his room.

 _Boundaries_. Jesus. Boundaries were important. If Merlin couldn’t figure that out for himself, well, then Arthur would have to teach him, wouldn’t he? He lay awake in bed till it was pretty much time to get up for work; he couldn’t quite get the smell of death out of his nostrils. Then he went to the kitchen and made a point of putting the blinds up. They’d been down most of the time since Merlin had moved in.

He waited for Merlin to scuttle down the hallway and peep his head into the kitchen, which was flooded with sunlight. It was a regular vampire-free zone, and Arthur was quite enjoying it. Merlin asked him to close the blinds. Arthur declined to do so. 

“I’m trying to get my dinner, okay? I can’t come in with the blinds open. That would be bad.” He said it like he really thought Arthur didn’t know. Like Arthur didn’t know what sunlight did to vampires. Well, actually he didn’t, or not the specifics, but Merlin didn’t need to know that.

“I know you can’t,” he said. “I just don’t want you coming in here.” Merlin whined that he was hungry. “I don’t care. I don’t want you in here.”

“Can you maybe pass me some stuff out the fridge, then?” Merlin was still whining. God, why was he still whining?

“No. Go hungry,” said Arthur.

“Bastard,” Merlin muttered. Arthur ignored the result. And hell, it wasn’t like it was his fault Merlin couldn’t come into a sunlit room – he hadn’t asked for a vampire flatmate, and he said so.

“Is this about last night?” Merlin was still peeping around the doorframe, just his head and fingers, like a cartoon character. “’Cause I didn’t mean to wake you up. Honest.”

“I don’t care that you woke me up,” said Arthur flatly. “You wake me up all the time. You’re not as quiet as you think you are.”

“What, so you’re sending me to bed without my supper?” said Merlin. “Wanker. Just let me get at the fridge, yeah?” He still wasn’t grasping it, though to be honest Arthur hadn’t really expected him to. He turned to look Merlin in the eye.

“No,” he said, and stared Merlin down till he retreated, glowering, back from whence he came – which as it happened was back down the hallway, not into the depths of hell where he belonged, but close enough.

*

He’d begged leave from work an hour early so he could meet Morgana at the airport. She came through the gate with her carry-on bag slung over her shoulder and a little suitcase trundling behind her, and when she saw him her face broke into a smile. She abandoned her suitcase to run the last few steps and hug him. “Oh, I missed your big stupid face,” she said. “ _Ugh_. Why’d I go and move?”

“To get as far away from me and father as possible,” said Arthur, grinning into her hair. Morgana stiffened slightly at that, at the reminder of their father, but it wasn’t a big deal, really. Just something they had in common now, the fact that they weren’t on speaking terms with him – though father was at least civil with Morgana.

“How are things?” said Morgana. “Not too bad, I hope?”

“Yeah, could be worse,” said Arthur. Actually, he’d begged the hour off work so he could go home, clean the kitchen as best he could, shop, and unpack some of his cooking things, all in a terrified blitz. “I, er, still don’t have a car. Do you mind –”

“Oh, don’t be silly,” said Morgana. “I’ll get us a taxi.” She took hold of her suitcase, arguing Arthur down when he tried to take it, and trundled out of the airport. He’d kind of thought she’d say that, but he’d wanted to get the bus, ‘cause he could afford two bus fares. He couldn’t afford a taxi fare, and he hated the thought of her paying for him. He was glad she hadn’t offered to take him out to dinner, since he couldn’t afford that either. Hell, maybe she knew. Maybe that was why she hadn’t offered.

“And _then_ ,” she said in the taxi, “just as the little bugger shuts up, this _other_ toddler at the other end of the plane starts screaming. Honestly.” Arthur snorted a laugh at her pain. They were going to her hotel first, to drop off her things. It was a nice hotel. It wasn’t five star or anything, but still Arthur felt intensely grubby in the lobby the whole time Morgana was checking in. 

“So what are we eating?” she asked as she touched up her make-up in the bathroom. Arthur was wandering round the hotel room, debating sitting down. He didn’t want to rumple the nice bedsheets, and Morgana had put her jacket on the chair.

“Oh, um,” he said. “Just pasta. I was a bit pushed for time.”

“Pasta’s good,” said Morgana. “Oh, I picked up some wine before I got on the plane.” And there was another thing Arthur couldn’t really afford. Damn Morgana. Damn her. “Right,” she said, coming out of the bathroom and lifting her jacket, effectively ending Arthur’s dilemma. “Shall we go?”

“Yeah,” said Arthur. “Oh. Er, before we leave?”

“Hmm?” Morgana paused in the act of unhooking her hair from her jacket.

“There’s something you should know about my flatmate,” said Arthur. 

“Oh, am I going to get to meet him?” said Morgana.

“I really really hope not,” said Arthur. “Look. He’s, well. A vampire.”

Morgana stared at him, wide-eyed. Then she snorted something that was almost a laugh. Then she said, “oh, Jesus, Arthur, really?” Arthur tucked his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “Wait, is he –”

“He’s on the program,” said Arthur hastily. “And he’s quiet – ish, anyway – and I barely see him, and he’s paying half the rent and bills. Could be worse.” He wanted to say _what, no-one else would live with me_ , but at the same time he really didn’t want to tell her that part.

“Wow,” said Morgana. “I’ve never met a vampire before.”

“Yeah, hopefully you still won’t,” said Arthur.

“I thought you said he was on the program?”

“He is,” said Arthur. “Doesn’t mean he’s, you know. Safe.” Morgana gave him an all too familiar look, the one that said _Arthur, honey, you’re parroting your father again_. Arthur did his best to ignore it, as often did, and gestured at the door as gracefully as he could manage.

Morgana was nice enough not to say anything about the state of his flat. He’d done his best with it. He’d cleaned the hall and the kitchen and the bathroom, and he’d put down his old rug and stuck a picture on the wall with some drawing pins. It was still a state, though. The picture was covering the mouldy part.

But the kitchen was pretty well-ventilated, so there was no mould needing covering up. Morgana sat at the table and sipped the wine she’d brought from a glass Arthur had unpacked specially, and Arthur did his best to cook dinner with what meagre supplies he had. But Arthur, for all his faults, wasn’t that bad a cook. He’d missed cooking. He’d missed eating home-cooked food; more than anything he’d missed Morgana. But they were only halfway through their meal when Arthur’s worst-case scenario came to pass.

Well, not quite his _worst-case_ scenario – there were worse things that could happen, like a sink-hole suddenly opening under his kitchen, or snakes, or the gas main blowing up the whole building. But it was pretty close. There was a shambling out in the hall, which he ignored; and then Morgana looked up and said, “hi!” 

Arthur followed her gaze to the door. Merlin was there, in his pyjamas, poking his head and shoulders into the room. He was creeping on them like – like a creepy thing. “Oh. It’s you.”

“You must be Merlin,” said Morgana, all politeness and smiles, like Merlin was just a regular flatmate. “Arthur’s told me about you.” She gave Arthur a look that said _the hell you did_. Arthur spread his hands to say _what, I told you I had a flatmate, didn’t I?_ Morgana’s responding glare said _well, you missed out some salient little details_. Arthur glared back, _what, it’s not like it was any of your business_. Morgana gave him a cryptic look – _Arthur, honey, don’t_.

Arthur gave up trying to reason with her. “Merlin, this is my sister, Morgana.”

Merlin greeted Morgana nicely, then said, “nice to meet you. Don’t mind me. Just getting breakfast.” He slithered into the kitchen and went to the fridge.

“Breakfast?” said Morgana, confused. 

“I’m nocturnal,” said Merlin, with his cold dead hand clasped around a bag of blood from the fridge. 

“Oh, of course,” said Morgana. “I’m sorry. I haven’t met any vampires before.” She gave Arthur another pointed look. _Well, now I have_.

“Really?” Merlin was in the process of decanting his blood into a cereal bowl. “You should do it more often. We’re lots of fun.” He gave Morgana a nasty, flirty smile. 

Arthur expected Morgana to tell him to go to hell, but instead she smiled back and said, “I’ve certainly heard some interesting things.” Oh god, she was actually flirting back. His sister was flirting with a vampire – no, a vampire was flirting with his sister. Flirting with her, and staring at her neck like a teenager checking out a girl’s tits. Arthur stood up, grabbed Merlin – who was in the act of mixing shreddies into his blood – and dragged him into the hallway. Blood spattered onto the linoleum. Merlin sputtered a protest, but Arthur ignored him till they were outside.

“Shut up,” he hissed. He shouldered open the living room door and pulled Merlin inside. “Just shut up, alright? And stop flirting with my sister.”

Merlin blinked, an expression of honest-looking bafflement spread across his face like warm butter. “I wasn’t flirting.”

“Oh, you were so flirting!” said Arthur.

Merlin got a shifty look in his eye. “So what if I was?”

Arthur’s stomach almost turned. He realised he was still touching Merlin, and dropped his arm like it was hot. “It’s messed up, alright? You’re like ninety!”

“I’m eighty-five!” Merlin hissed. “Do I look ninety?”

“Whatever. You’re old and it’s creepy,” said Arthur.

“What, so you think I’m old and creepy?” said Merlin.

“Yes!” Arthur exclaimed. “Yes. You’re creepy. You’re a creepy old man who shouldn’t be perving on girls like that and checking out their necks like you want to – urgh.”

Merlin was starting to look honestly hurt, or at least uncomfortable. “I’m on the wagon.”

“Sure you are,” said Arthur. “That doesn’t mean you don’t think about it, though, does it?”

Now Merlin _really_ looked uncomfortable. He didn’t meet Arthur’s eye. “Maybe you just can’t handle that your sister might like me,” he said.

Arthur saw red. He shoved Merlin as hard as he could. It was a little like shoving a brick wall, but Merlin gave a bit, if only a couple of steps. “You stay away from her, alright?” He left Merlin alone in the living room, slamming the door so that it bounced in its frame – it didn’t quite fit the frame, anyway – and went back to the kitchen. 

Morgana was in the act of re-filling her wineglass. “You were a while,” she said.

Arthur snatched the bottle out of her hand and topped up his own glass. “Don’t,” he said. “And don’t _flirt_ with my flatmate.”

“I wasn’t flirting,” said Morgana. She flicked her hair and sipped her wine. Arthur didn’t answer. “Anyway, tell me more about him.”

“About who?” Arthur sat down and resumed eating his dinner. 

“Merlin, silly,” said Morgana. Arthur shrugged. Morgana prodded his leg with her toe. The kitchen was tiny enough that she could reach easily. “What’s his deal?”

“Aside from vampirism?” said Arthur. Morgana gave him her _well, obviously_ look. “I dunno. He works nights. He’s noisy when I’m trying to sleep. He makes the flat smell.” Morgana looked at him as if she expected him to go on. “What? There’s not much to tell.”

“You mean you don’t know,” said Morgana. “You live with him. You could at least try to get to know him.”

Arthur swallowed his last bite of pasta and stood up. He dumped his plate in the sink with a rattle of cutlery. “He’s a vampire. I don’t see that I need to know any more.”

Morgana gave him the look again – the _Arthur, you’re parroting your father_ look. Arthur scowled and jabbed a finger at her. “No. Don’t give me that, alright?” Morgana spread her hands as if to say _what, I didn’t say anything_. Arthur ignored her. “I’ll let you have that one in the benefits argument and the immigration argument, but this – we’re not talking about _people_ here, Morgana, we’re talking about – _monsters_.”

He’d expected a smart rebuttal, but Morgana just stared. Stared, and set down her wineglass – _clink_ – and walked across the room to hug him. “Arthur,” she said. “Arthur, sweetheart.”

“Stop it,” said Arthur, trying to shrug her off – ‘cause he hadn’t been talking about himself, right? He wasn’t a vampire, he was a werewolf, and he was pretty sure he was different than most werewolves as well. Whatever usually happened to werewolves’ brains hadn’t happened to his – or he was coping with it differently – something was different, he knew it.

She let go – but she kept her hand on his arm. She was talking to him in the same tone of voice she used to use when they were kids and he’d hurt himself. “You can talk to me, you know.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” said Arthur. That was a barefaced lie, and he knew it – but if there was one thing he’d learned from his father, from his old life, that he was _not_ going to let go of, it was that you didn’t let your feelings show, even if that meant quietly drowning in them. That night, once Morgana was safely back in her hotel room, he lay in bed and stared at the dark ceiling, charting its many blemishes – cobwebs, there, there, and there; a mysterious brown stain; cracks there, and there.

He’d been so desperately looking forward to seeing Morgana, but now – thanks to _Merlin_ – when he thought back on the evening he felt nothing but a stewing misery and a rising panic. No matter how he tried to clamp it back down, he couldn’t shake the memory of Morgana hugging him, all over sympathy – all over _pity_. He tried to distract himself, but nothing helped, not even clawing at his own skin, not even the sharp bites of pain. But it hurt, and he wanted it to hurt. He wanted to tear his own vile, treacherous body to pieces.

He clawed mercilessly till his skin broke and he could feel blood trickling down; then at last, weary, he fell asleep.

He dreamt, with feverish intensity, that his body was not his own; it was the wolf, the wolf he’d seen in the woods, the wolf who had turned him. Except it was his body; it moved with him and brayed when he tried to talk and no matter how hard he clawed he couldn’t break out. And there were people. Everywhere there seemed to be people; it was the mob from _Wolfman_ except as well as torches and pitchforks they were waving camera phones at him, filming his agony.

He ran from them on all four feet like an animal, his claws scratching the ground, but no matter where he ran there were always people, people herding them like they were dogs and he a frantic sheep. They were herding him to a pit. He could see it up ahead. A pit – a Monster-Hole, freshly dug for him, and there was nowhere else to run to and no time to stop. He tried. He clutched at the edge of the pit with his claws, and the people were all around, jeering at him, their eyes hard; and amongst their faces he saw his father’s, glaring at him.

His claws slipped on the edge of the hole, and he fell. He fell into the cavernous darkness. It was rounded and as smooth as if it had been carved from marble. He tried to claw his way out – he should be able to claw his way out, the monster _always_ clawed its way out for one last show-down before it died, but there was no way to climb out. So he howled instead; he heard himself howling, and he heard an incessant banging that he couldn’t seem to drown out no matter how loud he howled.

“Arthur?” He was awake, drenched with his own sweat, and the banging was the door. It creaked open and Merlin’s head poked into the room. Oh, Jesus, Arthur hadn’t thought he’d ever be relieved to see _Merlin_ , of all people. “Hi. Sorry, I know it’s late, but – are you okay?”

Arthur blinked. For a moment he thought he’d really been howling, that Merlin must have heard – but no, he’d come in to ask something else and got distracted by the fact that Arthur must look like shit. He glared.

“Right, yeah,” said Merlin. “I know it’s late, but there’s something up with the washing machine and I need to, y’know, laundry.”

Arthur was too tired to protest. “Right,” he said. “Right. I’ll, er, be right through.”

“Okay,” said Merlin, in a half-whisper, as if Arthur were a frightened animal. He closed the door softly – and really, why, Arthur was already awake – and Arthur lay back on the pillows with a groan. His arm had scabbed over. He scratched it absently till it was bleeding again.

A minute or so later he stumbled out of his room in his old footie shirt. Merlin was lurking in the utility cupboard with a basket full of wet clothes. “I dunno, it just seized up,” he said as Arthur poked around inside. “And are you _sure_ you’ll alright? You look kind of –”

“I’m _fine_ ,” Arthur snapped. “Jesus. It’s, what, three in the morning, and you woke me up to grope around inside the bloody washing machine – and you’re asking why I look –”

“Alright, alright,” said Merlin. “Hey, what did you do to your arm?” Arthur looked at his arm. It was bleeding. He hadn’t noticed how much it was bleeding. “Is there something sharp in there?” Merlin tried to peer into the machine. Arthur pulled the door to.

“Yeah. I guess,” he said. Merlin rubbed the back of his neck.

“Okay, hang on,” he said, and sloped out of the room. He came back half a minute later bearing a plaster he must have swiped from Arthur’s bathroom cabinet. “Here.” Arthur stared at him. He wasn’t really confused as to why Merlin was being nice to him, because hey, of course he was on his best behaviour, he’d buggered up the washing machine and dragged Arthur out of bed to fix it. No, it was just the oddness of for once feeling like he had a normal flatmate. Merlin stared at him, and unwrapped the plaster as if Arthur were confused about what to do with it.

Arthur snatched the plaster. “Thanks,” he said as he fixed it to his arm.

“Well, it’s my fault you cut it, yeah?” said Merlin. Arthur smiled, thin-lipped, and stuck his hand back into the machine. His hand closed on something slimy. He winced and tugged it out.

“I’m going to say this is your problem,” he said, holding up a bedraggled pair of underpants. They were red and printed with little bats, of all things. Merlin grabbed them from him and hid them behind his back, as if Arthur hadn’t already noticed the pattern. “Bats. Cute.”

“They were a gift!” Merlin aimed a kicked at his laundry basket, sliding it out of sight. “Well. I think we’re done here.”

“Let’s hope so,” said Arthur. He hung around while Merlin loaded up the machine and switched it back on. It whirred happily. Arthur shambled back to bed, but he didn’t rate his chances of getting back to sleep very high. Especially not with Merlin clattering about the place.

*

Stupidly, he’d thought he and Merlin might be starting to get along; he was a little unnerved by the notion, but hey, better to have a flatmate he liked, right? Right?

He came in from work one evening to find that Merlin and his idiot vampire friends had been in the flat and, well, done something that was probably meant to be joke, but if it was a joke it was a sick one. There were dog biscuits strewn across the kitchen table, dog food spilling out of a doggie bowl – a doggie bowl which, it took him a while to notice, someone had stuck a lopsided label onto. Written on it in marker pen was his name, _ARTHUR_. There was a leash draped across the handle of his bedroom door like a noose. The flat stank of vampire, and it stank of dog biscuits. He had to get out. He had to be somewhere where he could _breathe_. He stormed out into the hallway, then realised he’d left his keys in his jacket and his jacket on its hook, so he couldn’t leave the building unless he went back in; and besides, it was raining out.

Arthur stood in the hallway instead. He stood with his forehead pressed against the notched paint of the wall and breathed deep, trying to get the stench of vampire and dog out of his lungs. Salt prickled in his eyes. He punched the wall – once, twice. The second time left a dent. Right. He was supposed to be taking his pills, but they were in the flat. 

“Are you quite well?” said a deep voice. Arthur swung around, wiping his eyes, frantic. It was the wizened old man who lived across the way, the shaman. His glasses were dangling on a chain around his neck, but his stare was piercing. 

“M’fine,” said Arthur. “I just. Vampires.” He slumped against the wall. It was cool against his back.

“Ah, yes,” said the shaman. “Yes, that mate of yours.” Arthur blinked, trying to work out if the ‘flat’ in ‘flatmate’ had gotten lost somewhere, or if he meant ‘mate’ as in friend, or – before he could ask, the shaman smiled pleasantly and inquired after Merlin’s health. He asked after Merlin by name, which was a bit weird ‘cause Arthur didn’t remember mentioning it, but maybe Merlin had introduced himself.

“Yeah, he’s, er,” said Arthur, then in a stroke of inspiration, “moving out. He’s moving out.”

“Ah,” said the shaman. He seemed untroubled by the news. “You are parting ways?”

“Yeah, I guess,” said Arthur. He wished he’d never moved in with Merlin. He wished he’d never invited him into the flat. “Hey, um. You know a bit about vampires, right?”

“On the contrary, young werewolf,” said the shaman. “I know a _lot_ about vampires, and indeed about all supernatural entities.”

“Great,” said Arthur. “So would you happen to know – once you’ve invited a vampire into your home – is it possible to, like, undo that? Can you _un_ invite a vampire?”

“Not precisely,” said the shaman. Arthur’s heart sank. “But yes, with the right ritual an invitation can be revoked and a dwelling returned to its original state. But what is done cannot be undone. No.”

Arthur stared at him. “So… you _can_ uninvite a vampire?”

“It is a simple ritual,” said the shaman. “In fact, I have all the necessary tools at my disposal.”

“Okay,” said Arthur. He pondered. “So, like. What are your rates?”

The shaman smiled. He walked across the hallway and clasped Arthur’s hands in his. “For you, sir,” or maybe he said _sire_ , Arthur couldn’t make it out and again he went on talking before Arthur could ask, “I will charge nothing. This is but one step in a large design.”

“Really? Wow, that’s so nice of you,” said Arthur. “Can you do it right away? I _really_ need this guy out of my life –”

“Do not be so hasty,” said the shaman. “Two sides of a coin cannot be parted for long.” Arthur stared. The shaman patted his hand. “There are larger forces at work here. The forces of love and destiny guide you. Destiny will draw you back together; love will bind you.”

“Excuse me?” said Arthur. He was starting to wonder if the shaman was actually just senile. “No, I don’t – _love_ him. I really hate this guy.”

The shaman patted his hand again. “The half cannot truly hate that which makes it whole.”

“Oookay,” said Arthur. He slipped his hands out of the shaman’s grip. “So, can we do this right away?” 

The shaman smiled pleasantly and went back into his flat, muttering more rubbish about coins and destiny and the wings of fate. He came back with a basket and spent a quarter of an hour or so chanting and muttering and waving smoking bundles of herbs back and forth in the doorway of Arthur’s flat.

Then he said, “it is done. May destiny smile on you,” patted Arthur’s shoulder, and retreated towards his flat. “And now destiny decrees that it is time for bovril.”

*

Arthur got up extra early the next morning just to hear the fun – and to check it had worked. He sat in the living room with a mug of tea, waiting for the sound of Merlin’s key in the door. The _click-rattle-creak_ was followed by a hiss and a yelp of pain, and then a cry of, “Arthur!”

Arthur stood up and took his time walking to the door. He poked his head around and saw Merlin standing just outside the front door, looking pale – well, paler than usual – and enraged. “Oh, you back already?” he said, affecting a casual tone, barely able to contain his glee. 

“What the fuck did you _do_?” snarled Merlin. Arthur walked forward, close to the door as he could get while being sure that Merlin wouldn’t be able to grab him. 

“I went and spoke to the shaman guy across the hall, and had him do an _un_ inviting. _My_ flat is now a vampire-free zone. Great, isn’t it?”

“You can’t do that!” Merlin squawked. “I live here!”

“You don’t count. You’re a _vampire_. You don’t _live_ anywhere.” Merlin stared at him. Arthur met his eye and stared back, as if they were engaging in a staring contest.

“Is this about the doggie bowl?” Merlin said suddenly, as if it had only just occurred to him – and probably it only just had. Arthur nodded, because yeah, of course it was. Apparently to Merlin it seemed out of the blue. “Oh, _come on_! That was a joke!”

“It wasn’t funny,” said Arthur flatly.

“I thought it was funny,” said Merlin. “We all did. Not my fault you’ve got no sense of humour.”

“Yeah, of course,” said Arthur. He couldn’t stop the bile rising in his voice as he went on. “I’m sure all your vampire friends think insinuating that I’m your pet _dog_ and I eat _dog food_ is the height of wit, don’t they?”

Merlin’s gaze fell to his feet. His shoulders slumped. “Well, I guess when you put it like that it doesn’t sound so funny.”

“I’m glad we agree,” said Arthur, voice dry, dryer, driest.

“But I get it now, so you can invite me in again?” said Merlin, his tone all sweet and hopeful. Arthur shook his head slowly. “What about all my things?”

Arthur shrugged. “I guess they’re mine now.”

“You’re stealing all my stuff?” Merlin sputtered. “You bastard! You –” Arthur grinned and began to close the door. “You can’t do this!” Merlin whined. “The sun’ll be up soon! Where am I supposed to go?” 

“I’m sure you’ll find somewhere,” said Arthur.

“But I’ll get toasted out there,” Merlin continued to whine.

Arthur shushed him. “You hear that? That’s the sound of me _not caring_. Bye now!” He slammed the door and walked back to the sitting room. He could hear Merlin pounding on the outside of the door and telling something about rent, but he tuned it out. He sat down on the sofa, picked up his cooling tea, and switched on the telly to watch the very earliest of the morning shows.

His elation did not last long. The sun began to peep around the edge of the curtains. He wondered, idly, if Merlin had found somewhere to go, or if he was outside in the sunrise – and then a cold fist clenched in his chest. Shit, what if Merlin was a spot on the pavement? What if he actually _died_ because Arthur was too fucking impatient to put up with a flatmate? He leapt off the sofa and raced to the door to see if Merlin was in the hallway. It was empty. No Merlin. He looked out the window set into the door of the building, at the sunlit street, and wondered just exactly what it was sun did to vampires. Did they really burst into flames, like in the movies, or did they just… shrivel up?

He was still leaning against the door, eyes pressed up against the window frame, when Mrs Balodis came down the stairs, on her way to work the early shift at the café down the road. “Oh, good morning,” she said. “You are not usually up this early. What are you doing, hmm?”

Arthur stared at her over his shoulder and moved aside to get her out. “I, er. I think I might have just killed my flatmate.”

Mrs Balodis barely even reacted. “Oh, well. He was a vampire, yes? You did a good thing.” She smiled brightly and patted his shoulder before leaving the building.

Arthur went back to the flat and proceeded to descend into a gibbering kind of panic. Shit, shit, shit, he’d hated Merlin but he hadn’t wanted him _dead_ – or, well, dead-er – he’d just wanted him gone. Not dead. Not burned to ashes in the middle of an ugly street of flats, where the rain would wash whatever was left away –

He got the number Merlin had called him from about the flat listing from his mobile and raced down the road to the phone box. It rang, and it rang, and it rang. He shoved another pound in and called again. It rang, and it rang, and just when it was about to ring off an old man answered. “Hello?” he said. “Dreadfully sorry. Couldn’t find the phone under all this.”

“Um, hi,” said Arthur. “Who am I speaking to?”

“I’m Gaius Emerson,” said the old man. “Listen, if you’re from the government, I think you should know that I am hoarding _no_ radioactive materials of any kind –”

“You’re Merlin’s brother?” Arthur interrupted.

“Ah, yes!” said Gaius. “Are you from the SPRVWW?”

“No,” said Arthur. “No, I just – do you know where Merlin is?”

“He’s upstairs,” said Gaius. “He’s using the shower – shall I take a message?” There was a sound of rummaging and a muttering about pencils.

“No, no!” said Arthur. “Actually, can you do me a favour and not tell him I called? I just wanted to check up on him – it’s fine.”

There was a fizzing silence on the line. There was a distant shout that Arthur recognised as Merlin’s voice – he felt a surge of relief at hearing his voice, and then confusion, because Merlin seemed to be yelling something about frogs. “Put it on the toilet cistern!” Gaius hollered back, not even bothering to cover the receiver. “No, wait – put it in the sink.” Merlin yelled back something that Arthur couldn’t make out. “What do you mean, full?” There was a rustling, and Gaius said, “I’m sorry, I have to deal with a frog situation. Don’t worry, I shan’t tell him you called. I’ll probably forget soon enough.” He chuckled to himself and hung up the phone.

It took Arthur three goes to get the phone back on its hook. He was slightly limp with relief. He was not a murderer, or whatever the appropriate word was for someone who killed a vampire-on-the-wagon. Count your blessings, he supposed as he walked back to the flat – to _his_ flat. It had worked out okay after all. Merlin was gone, back in his old house. Arthur felt tingly with glee. He cleaned up the mess in the kitchen, swept the dog biscuits back into their box to put away later, threw out all of Merlin’s blood and disinfected the fridge shelf.

Merlin’s room was kind of sparse. The shelves were lined with books and weird oddments – the kind of weird oddments you collected when you were a vampire, Arthur supposed. He toyed with a plastic coffin and snorted. There was a framed landscape print on one wall and some old film poster on the other. Arthur squirted air-freshener about and debated throwing it all out. He debated putting up an ad for the room right away.

Then his phone buzzed, and he went to the bathroom to take his pills – shit, his pills. The last bottle rattled emptily in his hand. There were only four doses left. He stared at them, vision blurring around the edges with panic. He’d meant to get that sorted out, but Merlin’s dumb prank had distracted him. He sat down at his laptop, pulled up his budget spreadsheet, and did the sums, and did them again.

There was only one way about it: he went to the chemist tomorrow and got his prescription filled. Or he had money to buy food for the next month. Even with his wages and Merlin supplementing his rent, it was one or the other. He banged his head against the keyboard, drilling a string of nonsense into the spreadsheet. _Shit. Shit. Shit_. How did things just keep getting worse? He couldn’t go off his meds – but he couldn’t empty his bank account for them either. He logged into his bank account and stared at the figures. It would only be till he got his next paycheck, surely. When his next pay check came in – a month, tops, without his meds. He could handle that.

The next day, he went to the chemist and, shuffling his feet and looking at the counter instead of at the nice girl’s face, asked for his prescription. “Sure,” she said. “It’ll be a few minutes. Can you sign here?” Arthur signed the form, still not meeting her eye. She swivelled over to the till and smiled. She didn’t seem bothered by his weird body language. Probably she was used to it, when dispensing prescriptions to werewolves. 

She named the price.

“Er, actually,” said Arthur. He took a deep breath, looked her in the eye, and put on his charming face. “Actually, I’m a bit hard up right now. Is there any chance you can –” She said the price again, sternly. It occurred to Arthur that his charming face might not be so charming when he was stubbly and dressed in a grubby hoody, and when she had a piece of paper declaring him a werewolf under her smartly polished fingernails. “I _need_ my meds,” he said. “And I can’t afford it right now – when my pay-check –”

She swivelled round in her chair and gestured at the pharmacist, holding up a finger to say _wait a moment_. She turned back to Arthur. “If you can’t pay today, I can’t give you the drugs.”

Did she really have to use that word, _drugs_? “Is there really nothing you can –”

“No, sir,” she said. “I’m sorry, sir.” She did not sound sorry.

Arthur breathed deep through his nose. Well, being charming wasn’t helping. Might as well try and different tack. He leaned heavily on the counter, both hands flat on the smooth faux-wood. “Look,” he said. “Do you have _any_ idea what will happen to me if I don’t get my meds?”

“No, sir,” said the lady behind the counter, quaking slightly.

“Neither do I,” Arthur half-snarled. 

It did not have the desired effect. She moved her hand, slowly, to rest on the phone, and said, “sir, if you don’t leave now I’m going to have to call the police.”

Police? What? It wasn’t like he was being violent or anything, just kind of rude – he’d been ruder in shops without anyone threatening to call the police – his eyes flicked again to the form beneath her tap-tapping fingernails, and he realised. Of course she thought he was inclined to be violent. He was inclined to be violent at the drop of a hat, right? Customers all around the shop were staring at him. He must looked the very image of a werewolf, shabby and hairy and on the brink of assaulting a poor, innocent maiden. 

“Right,” he snapped. “Right! Fine. I’m leaving!” He turned away from the counter, holding up his hands theatrically as if to say _look, see, I surrender, and I came in peace anyway_. Nobody else in the shop would meet his gaze as he walked out. He slammed the door so that the bell jangled twice.

Half an hour after he got home, the alert popped up on his phone. He tipped the last two pills into his hand and scrutinised them. They were such innocent-looking white capsules. Maybe he ought to wait a bit, see if he could stretch it out.

He poured himself a glass of water and took the pills.


	3. In which Arthur becomes a guinea pig

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _What Arthur knew about vampires was:_
> 
> _1) What he’d learned from TV and films over the years._  
>  2) What he’d learned from the time three of them had beaten him up.  
> 3) What he’d learned from Merlin. 

Arthur woke up the next morning with the wolf thrumming in his chest. He groped blindly on his bedside table for the pill bottle he usually kept there, but it was empty. He blinked at the brown plastic. Oh, yeah. That.

Ignoring the problem was easier said than done. When he opened the fridge for milk he recoiled. Despite his best efforts it still reeked of blood; blood, with a thin veneer of disinfectant. He struggled through getting out his milk with a hand pressed over his mouth and nose and started to make tea. But ouch, tea. He had to wait an age for it to be cooled enough to put in his mouth, and it tasted all wrong. Not bad, but different with such intensity that he had to spit it out in the sink. His toothpaste almost made him sick. And when he stepped out the front door, the sunlight dazzled him so much he was all but blind. His eyes streamed. He hadn’t realised his eyes would get more sensitive. Nose, yeah. Eyes? What.

In the end, he called work and said he was sick, which wasn’t even a lie. He was sick, that was all; sick, and it wouldn’t be more than a month before he could take his meds, right? He went through the cupboards until he found something mild-tasting enough to eat for breakfast and sat down in front of the telly to be sick all day.

If it had affected his vision before, he hadn’t noticed, but he did now. Light was brighter, colours were more intense. Smell and taste were a mess and he had to unplug all the appliances in the flat to shut off all the high-pitched hums he hadn’t noticed before. His scars were aching. His nose hurt. His brain hurt. On the second day of his own mini hell, he resolved to damn it all and get drunk, even if beer tasted like arse now. 

He was three bottles deep – half the beer he had left – and he was a werewolf. If he could deny it twenty-seven days out of the month before, he couldn’t now. The wolf was a constant howl inside him. He could feel it in his chest; in his throat; in his veins. The world was a reeking mess. He didn’t understand how people could possibly get used to it. Maybe they didn’t. Maybe this was what made them hollow-eyed zombies; maybe this was what had driven that wolf to roam the parkland and – 

There was a knock on the front door. He shambled out to see who it was, expecting maybe Mrs Balodis, or the shaman across the way, pretty much anyone but Merlin, looked all sheepish in a too-big hoodie. Arthur had expected him to stink worse than even now, but weirdly it wasn’t that bad. He stared. 

Merlin fidgeted, and then began a torrent of apologies. “I’m sorry about the doggie bowl and I’m sorry about all the times I told you to sit and called you Fido. I just – I really didn’t mean to upset you. It was supposed to be a joke.” Arthur continued to stare. “And I’m really sorry, and I’ve given it a lot of thought, and it’s probably best we stop living together before we end up killing each other or something, so – could you maybe let me have my stuff back? Please?” 

Arthur was a bit flummoxed. He hadn’t really thought of what he’d say if Merlin came back, but he supposed he’d figured that if he did, it’d be to start a row, not to apologise so profusely. And he realised, as Merlin kept on gabbling about how Arthur didn’t even have to invite him back in if he didn’t want to, that he wasn’t that angry with Merlin. He’d never been that angry with Merlin. Well, he’d been a little angry with Merlin, but mostly he’d been angry at everything else in his stupid, _shitty_ life, and Merlin had made a convenient target.

He opened the door properly and said, “come in, Merlin.”

Merlin blinked. “What, seriously?”

“I said it, didn’t I?” Arthur rolled his eyes. “Sorry for throwing you out like that.”

“I probably deserved it.” Merlin scuttled back into the flat like Arthur could rescind the invite any second.

Arthur went back into the living room, meaning to get away from Merlin, but he followed and stared at the mess. Arthur hadn’t realised how bad it had got. He sat down on the sofa and reached for his half-full beer. He regretted inviting Merlin back in – not in general, just right now. He didn’t have the energy to deal with him and it didn’t look like Merlin was going to get the hint and leave him alone. 

“So, am I living here again?” Arthur grunted a response. Merlin fidgeted. “Are you alright?” he said at length. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings that badly. Honest.”

“It’s not you,” said Arthur, half on reflex. “Or, well, it is you,” he correct himself. “But it’s not _just_ you. It’s – this. This whole thing.” He gestured at himself, at his body, and Merlin stared at him with vacant eyes. And okay, yeah, that had been vague, but c’mon how slow on the uptake was Merlin? He set his beer bottle down on the box he was using as a table with a _crunch_ of cardboard and stood up. He didn’t want to have this conversation now, or ever, really, but fuck it, it was happening now, and with _Merlin_ of all people. “My life,” he said, words flowing out like vomit, “was great. I swear to god. I had a great flat with a proper view and a lift and a _beautiful_ car – and I was all set to inherit the family business when my father retired, and I had a gorgeous girlfriend as well as all that, and then it was just – gone.” He took a breath. “This _thing_ happens and suddenly my father disowns me, I lose my job, I can’t afford to pay rent on the flat any more, I have to _sell_ the car –” It still hurt, thinking about Patricia. It was like a jab to the guts. “My girlfriend doesn’t want anything to do with me anymore, and the next thing I know I’m stuck in this shitty flat working at fucking IKEA just to keep eating and I have this – _thing_. In my blood.” He aimed a punch at the shitty, flimsy living room wall. It dented, and his knuckles didn’t even hurt. “The last thing I need is some vampire and his friends making fun of me,” he said to the wall.

He half expected Merlin to sidle out of the room after that tirade, but he didn’t. His mouth worked silently for a second or so, and then he said. “I’m sorry.” Arthur snorted, but weirdly hearing Merlin say that actually made him feel better. He sounded really sorry, even sorrier than he had when he was begging for his stuff back in the hallway. “I didn’t think,” Merlin went on. “It’s been so long since I was human, I guess I just forgot what it was like to change.” Arthur’s brain stuttered. He’d never really thought about the fact Merlin had been human once – _must_ have been human once. He supposed it could be worse. He could have been turned into a vampire. “It could be worse, though,” said Merlin, echoing his thoughts. Arthur turned to face him, incredulous. “I mean, there are worse places to work than IKEA. _Trust_ me,” he said, injecting such venom into that word that Arthur actually did trust him. “And there are worse people to live with than me. Honest! Me and Gaius used to live next door to a banshee. I swear, it was the loudest six months _of_ my life.” Arthur felt the corners of his mouth twitch upwards. “Then one time he got laryngitis and it was quiet for two whole weeks, it was the _best_ –” He began to laugh, and he had a weirdly infectious laugh, Arthur couldn’t help but join him. He sagged back onto the creaky, ancient sofa, and Merlin perched beside him. “Are we okay?” he said.

“No,” said Arthur, ‘cause they really, really weren’t, and right then he wasn’t sure they would ever be. He would never be _okay_ with vampires, would he? Just like he’d never be _okay_ with being a werewolf. “But I need someone to pay the other half of the rent, and I guess you’ll do.”

That seemed to stump Merlin a bit; he mumbled a reply, something about making himself useful, and cleared all the empties off Arthur’s makeshift coffee table. Arthur watched the back of his head – his hair was getting long, and why had Arthur noticed that, and why did vampires’ hair keep growing anyway? – until he was out the room. Then he continued to drink himself into a stupor and was still on the sofa when he woke up the next morning, jolted awake by the sound of Merlin’s key in the door.

He felt like shit. His head was throbbing and he thought he might be going to throw up. He was tempted to call in sick to work, but that would meaning spending a significant amount of time in the flat at the same time Merlin was in the flat, so he dragged himself off the sofa and into his bed, hoping he’d feel better when the sun came back. He did not; but neither did the prospect of spending time with Merlin look any better, so he forced his unwieldy limbs into his uniform and stumbled out of the flat without bothering with breakfast. He was nauseous by the time he went on a break and had to settle his stomach with stale muffins.

At the end of the day he choked down a half-hearted dinner and sank gratefully back into bed – only to be rudely awoken a few hours later.

Well, not really _rudely_. He was woken by his room being gently flooded with the smell of meat and tomatoes cooking. That was a first. He’d never been woken up by a smell before. One of the many perks of being a werewolf, he supposed. Then he woke up more fully and was still more confused, because who the hell was cooking at – what was it – four am? He climbed out of bed and went to investigate, stumbling out of his room and down the hall, falling the smell to the kitchen. It was Merlin – duh – looking so domestic it was kind of surreal. He had on floral oven gloves and he was taking a lasagne out of the oven.

“Oh, sorry,” said Merlin, blinking at him. “Did I wake you? I was trying to be quiet.”

“No, you were,” Arthur started to say, and then swallowed. Fuck, he was hungry. Evidently he had finally recovered from his epic hangover. “I think it was the smell,” he finished. “What are you doing?”

“Making lasagne,” said Merlin, bluntly literal as ever. He set it down on the stove and slipped his pale hands out of his gloves.

“It’s four in the morning,” said Arthur by way of clarification.

“Yeah, so it’s the middle of my day,” said Merlin. He prodded the surface of his lasagne with a spatula and seemed satisfied with it.

“I thought vampires only ate blood,” said Arthur. He had an awful thought that perhaps Merlin was making some kind of blood-lasagne, but it smelled like tomato sauce. “You’re weird,” he added to cover his uncomfortable hesitation.

“I like lasagne,” said Merlin, coming over all defensive. “But it’s not for me. It’s for my brother.”

For some reason, Arthur had assumed that Merlin’s brother, who he’d mentioned once or twice, was another vampire. He’d assumed it was some vampire slang thing, like blood brothers or something. But now Merlin was cooking him human food. “Your brother?” he said. “Your brother who you used to live with?”

Merlin nodded. “If I leave him to himself he lives off crackers and tea and sardines,” he said brightly. “I’ve always cooked for him. Ever since our mum died.”

Merlin had a human brother; Merlin’s brother was human. Arthur had never really thought of vampires staying in touch with their human families. He supposed he’d thought they wouldn’t want to – or their families wouldn’t want them, the way his hadn’t wanted him – but Morgana was still his sister, wasn’t she? “How old is he?” said Arthur, then cringed, ‘cause that sounded as if he was asking after a dog, or a baby.

But Merlin answered as if it was a perfectly natural question. “Nearly seventy.”

Arthur thought back. Merlin had said sixty-odd years on the program. “And here’s your… younger brother?”

“He’s the baby,” said Merlin. He said it happily, but there was an edge of something there, something like sad irony. How fucking weird must that be, being a vampire with human family, watching them get older and older while you stayed – how old must Merlin have been, twenty-five? Twenty-six? “I think this is done, don’t you?”

It took Arthur half a moment to realise Merlin was talking about the lasagne. “Right. Yeah. I think so. It smells good.”

“You want some?” said Merlin as he loosened the edges the tray.

It was on the tip of Arthur’s tongue so say no, ‘cause it would be weird, wouldn’t it, but he was bloody hungry and it smelled really good. “Alright, yeah,” he said. He sat down at the kitchen table. “I’m awake now anyway.” Plus he kind of wanted to talk to Merlin. He was kind of curious about that whole fucked-up situation. “So why’d you move out?” Merlin hmmed and set a plate down in front of Arthur, weirdly domestic for the wee hours of the morning. “If your brother needs looking after, why’d you move?”

“Because the house was full of frogs and nuclear waste,” said Merlin as if that explained everything. And oh yeah, _that_. Frogspawn and radioactive waste. Merlin noticed his utter confusion and came to his rescue. “He’s trying to create superpowered frogs,” he said, then added, in case it wasn’t already obvious, “he’s a bit odd.”

“Sounds it,” said Arthur. Merlin didn’t seem to notice how dry his tone was. He kept talking.

“Anyway, he lives around the corner. I see him most days. Or nights, I suppose. I kind of miss living with him sometimes, but I couldn’t stand his experiments any longer.” He shovelled a generous portion of lasagne onto Arthur’s plate – _splat_ – served himself, and sat down.

“Sounds like you’re pretty close,” said Arthur.

“He’s the only family I have left,” said Merlin with a trace of breathless laughter in his voice.

Arthur thought again of Morgana. He said, “how long ago were you,” he struggled for the right word. “…turned?”

“Sixty three years, and five months, and two weeks,” said Merlin, reeling it off with remarkably little stumbling. Arthur looked at him and marvelled. It was difficult to believe how old he was, but at the same time, sometimes it was really, really easy. “How about you?” 

Arthur stared at his plate, at the lasagne he hadn’t brought himself to taste yet, no matter how hungry he was and how good it smelled. “Just under a year.” He cannot prevent himself from sounding utterly morose, and he can’t stop Merlin from noticing and trying to comfort him.

“Look on the bright side. If you’d never been turned you’d never have met me!” He said it with barely a trace of irony, and when Arthur looked up at him he was smiling his sunniest smile.

“What a loss that would have been,” he said, dry, dryer, driest. He bit the bullet and took a mouthful of lasagne. It was good. He might go so far as to say it was very good, considering it was cooked by someone whose palate ran to blood, and other kinds of blood. He didn’t think he could do better. But then again, he’d never been very good at lasagne. “This is really good.”

“I know, I’ve been honing it,” said Merlin. “You cook, right?”

Arthur pushed his lasagne around his plate. “Used to. I don’t have the energy for it anymore.”

“You should cook more,” said Merlin, like it was any of his business what Arthur did. “You never seem to do anything. You just come home from work and sit in the living room all evening. Don’t think I haven’t noticed.”

And yeah, that sucked; and yeah, Arthur needed to do something about it. But when Merlin commented on it he couldn’t help but get defensive. “It’s not my fault my friends don’t want to see me anymore.”

“Well, you need better friends, then,” said Merlin.

He was probably right, but – “Shut up, Merlin.” 

“I thought you wanted to talk to me?” Merlin said around a mouthful of pasta.

“I wanted your lasagne. I like lasagne.” He hadn’t really expected Merlin to shut up, because it was _Merlin_ and besides, he didn’t really mean it, he did kind of want to talk, but Merlin actually did shut up. Arthur ate the rest of his lasagne in silence while Merlin picked around the edges of his portion and eventually shoved most of it onto Arthur’s plate and served himself some blood from the fridge. Arthur swallowed the last mouthful of Merlin’s leftovers and watched him take his blood out of the microwave. “So. You’re on the wagon?” It was an awkward question and a lead-in to an even more awkward one.

“Yep,” said Merlin, flapping his hand, bracelet jangling. 

“Were you ever,” Arthur chose his next words carefully, “ _not_ on the wagon?”

The look on Merlin’s face answered his question for him. “Let’s not talk about that.” Merlin blew on his blood and took a sip.

“No, I want to know,” said Arthur. Merlin was quiet, warming his eternally-cold hands on the mug of warm blood.

“It was a long time ago,” he said. “And it was only for a few months. I kind of panicked, after I realised what had happened to me, and I made some mistakes.”

Arthur thought of the kind of _mistakes_ a newly-turned vampire might make, and he felt slightly sick. “Pretty big mistakes,” he said.

Merlin went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “And then I decided I should use my powers for good and started going after criminals,” said Merlin, then seemed to realise just what a fucked-up statement that was. “In my defence, we still had the death penalty back then, so –”

“But you have – killed, then?” said Arthur. The response was an uncomfortable shift. Again: question answered without a word. Or he thought it was.

“Actually, no,” he said. “Or I don’t think so. I’m not sure. It was a long time ago.” Arthur stared at him, incredulous as to how he could possibly _not remember_. It was dawning on him that Merlin’s discomfort might be more embarrassment than remorse. “Mostly either they fought back and won or I couldn’t finish it.” He sipped his blood. “Turns out I suck at being a vampire. Pun not intended. I was never cut out for it. So after the first couple of months I was sick and tired and hungry, and I went home to my family and cried and apologised, and my mum cried all over me, and my sisters cried and Gaius cried but he was just a little kid so he cried most of the time anyway.” A faint smile crossed his face. “And then my mum made rice pudding. I haven’t had rice pudding in years.” He caught Arthur’s eye. “What?”

“You’re a very odd vampire,” said Arthur. It crossed his mind that maybe Merlin wasn’t that bad; maybe he was just a dumb kid – an octogenarian dumb kid – with terrible dress sense and a worse hair cut who just happened to drink blood rather than being a blood-sucking fiend. But that would be ridiculous.

“Oh? How many have you met?” said Merlin. Arthur shrugged. Merlin, and his friends, who were all pretty odd as vampires went. “Thought so.”

Arthur slid his plate across the table. “I’m going to go back to bed now. Early start tomorrow.”

“Sleep well, yeah?” said Merlin as Arthur slouched out of the room. He reflected on the conversation while he was brushing his teeth, wondering just what exactly the appeal of rice pudding would be for a vampire – or lasagne, for that matter. Maybe it was nostalgia, or a desire to break up an all-blood diet with something less gross and liquidy.

*

Weirdly, despite the whole kicking-Merlin-out-of-the-flat-right-before-sunrise fiasco, things were actually a little better after that. Merlin had his vampire friends over, a whole crowd of them, and Arthur had to get up in the night to let them in, even though having them all in the flat made his blood pressure go up like nothing else, and they were a bunch of pricks, but Merlin actually told them to lay off when they got too prickish. It was an honest shock, not something he’d ever have expected from Merlin, and he appreciated it. He’d never admit it, but he appreciated it.

“I don’t need you looking out for me, you know,” he said to Merlin the next morning, loitering in the kitchen doorway on his way out the flat. Merlin hummed in response, confused. “Last night,” Arthur clarified. “I can handle myself.”

“Against a whole room of vampires?” said Merlin. Blood spattered into his saucepan.

“You know what I mean,” said Arthur. “Also your friends are a bunch of pricks.”

“They’re not so bad, they just don’t like werewolves.” Merlin fetched a spoon and began to eat his blood straight out the saucepan. Ew.

“Maybe you need better friends too,” said Arthur. 

He hadn’t expected Merlin to agree – he’d expected Merlin to bite his head off, figuratively speaking – but Merlin shrugged and said, “Maybe.” He sucked his whole spoon into his mouth, and Arthur tried not to watch. He couldn’t really help but watch, though. The blinds clacked in the draft from the window.

“Why don’t you like werewolves?” said Arthur. The question just sort of tumbled out. He’d never really thought to ask before. It had seemed perfectly naturally for Merlin – and all the rest of the vampires – to hate him. After all, the human world hated him enough.

Merlin looked at him over the rim of the saucepan. “Well,” he said, “why don’t you like vampires?”

“Because you drink the blood of the living,” said Arthur, with an air of _duh_. “It’s vile.” He paused, and thought that through, because actually as far as he knew Merlin _didn’t_ drink the blood of the living, or at least not living _people_. “Also you smell all wrong,” he added. He stopped himself from saying _like death_ because he thought that might be rude, and also ‘cause Merlin actually smelled less death-like now he was off his meds.

“You’re hairy and disgusting and you smell like wet dog all the time,” said Merlin. “Goes both ways, see?”

“Well, we don’t kill people,” said Arthur, folding his arms.

Merlin shrugged again. “I’ve known plenty of people who got killed by werewolves.” By _people_ Arthur assumed he meant vampires, since he couldn’t imagine Merlin had any human friends. “And I don’t kill people either. None of my friends do. Well, maybe Gilli, but he’s not really my friend, he just hangs around sometimes.”

Arthur wasn’t sure which of Merlin’s prickish friends Gilli was. He made a mental note to try and find out, then realised he didn’t care, since they were all vampires. “You can’t help what you do on the full moon,” he persisted.

Merlin stared at him, squinting, like Arthur was something very bright. “I guess, yeah,” he said at length. He clutched his saucepan to his chest and wandered out of the room. “I’m going to finish this in my room.”

*

Arthur’s walk home from work took him past a bookshop and a craft supplies shop. Somewhere between stopping to glower at the Edward Cullen cut-out they’d put up to promote whatever new creepy book he was in and lingering to look at the glittery letters on a hand-made ‘50% off all ribbon!!’ sign, an idea coalesced. Because fuck everything, Merlin still deserved some pay-back for the doggie treats fiasco. Well, shutting him out of the flat had been pay-back, but this was more fun.

And if he was going to be honest with himself the glitter was less pay-back and more peace offering. He stood in Merlin’s darkened bedroom and took a moment to consider him, all sleepy and pale – he was sleeping on his side, not flat on his back the way vampires were supposed to, huh – then upended his plus-sized tub of glitter and began to pour. He wasn’t sure if he was disappointed or pleased by how long it took to wake Merlin up. On the one hand, it turned out glitter was actually pretty awful for waking people up from a dead sleep. On the other hand, he made Merlin so _pretty_.

At last, Merlin stirred, rubbing at his nose. He opened his eyes and squealed like a girl as glitter trickled in. He looked up at Arthur, astonished. “Did you just pour glitter all over me?”

“Yep,” said Arthur. Merlin sputtered, demanding an explanation. “Why’d you think?” Merlin lunged for the glitter, but vampire reflexes weren’t all they were cut out to be. Arthur dodged and tossed another handful into Merlin’s face. Somehow he managed to spark of a glitter-fight that left them both covered in the stuff.

“Look what you did!” Merlin punched Arthur’s arm. Despite his skinny little fists, it actually hurt. It hurt quite a lot. “You poured glittered everywhere!” Merlin wailed.

“Suits you,” said Arthur. “You look very pretty, Cullen.”

“Stop calling me that,” Merlin said. “I stopped calling you Fido, didn’t I?”

They really weren’t on the same level, but Arthur didn’t say so. “You’re right,” he said. “I’m sorry. You’re too ridiculous to be Edward Cullen.” Merlin lunged vainly for the glitter, even though it was mostly empty now.

“I am not ridiculous!” he said, flapping his glittery hands.

“Oh, _come on_ ,” said Arthur. “You’re a pathetic excuse for a vampire. You pour blood on cereal and you wear bright colours all the time and you have the most awful ears I’ve ever seen.” It came out weirdly fond for something he’d meant as an insult, so he bit down anything more he might have wanted to say. Merlin didn’t seem to notice.

“What’s wrong with my ears? I like my ears,” said Merlin. “And what do you know about vampires, anyway?”

And alright, yeah, he had a point. What Arthur knew about vampires was:

1) What he’d learned from TV and films over the years.  
2) What he’d learned from the time three of them had beaten him up.  
3) What he’d learned from Merlin, which had to be the most nuanced and unbiased source of information. (He’d seen Merlin in his underwear once. It had been excruciating for them both.)

But he didn’t say any of that. He shrugged, and told Merlin he had a letter. His first post to the flat, as far as Arthur knew, and it said URGENT on the envelope. “You couldn’t have waited for me to get up?” Merlin whined.

“Glitter was more fun,” said Arthur. “See you around, Cullen.” He turned on his heel and left the room, satisfied with the whole exchange, glitter in his hair aside.

*

He reckoned he’d done a pretty good job of compartmentalising the whole ‘full moon’ thing. He just didn’t think about it outside of the centre, and he didn’t think about the rest of his life while he was inside the centre. It was a separate bit of his life – horrifying, but separate. As of yet the system hadn’t broken down.

It helped that he was starting to get more comfortable being in the centre. He knew his way around, he had a usual room, and they’d finally finished putting in the private shower stalls so washing up afterwards wasn’t so excruciating. He’d just got done showering and having a bandage put on his hand – he’d cut it pretty badly while he was gone, the nurse told him he’d probably bitten himself (‘common stress behaviour, in enclosed spaces’) – and was adjusting his bag in the foyer when he looked up and saw Merlin.

He felt a weird kind of jolt, because what, _no_ , that wasn’t right, and how had Merlin found him? But Merlin wasn’t looking for him. Merlin looked as astonished to see Arthur as Arthur was to see him. Arthur would have been happy to pretend they hadn’t seen each other and just kept walking but Merlin came over and waved an awkward hello.

“Um,” said Arthur. “Hi? What are you doing here?”

“It’s Thursday,” said Merlin, as if that cleared matters up. “Blood Circle.” He waved a hand at a nearby door. Arthur looked and saw a sign that read BLOOD CIRCLE Evenings 7-9pm Room 12B. There were even cartoony blood dribbles. Arthur wondered if maybe all vampires were secretly big dorks. They were all really old, after all, and old people were often big dorks.

“Oh,” said Arthur. He rubbed the back of his neck, and realised Merlin was looking at the bandage. He hid his hand behind him and said, “well, have fun with that.”

“Yeah,” said Merlin. “Freya’s bringing scones.” He smiled sunnily, and Arthur smiled awkwardly back.

Across the foyer, another door opened and a gaggle of kids spilled out. Arthur reflected that he was, in fact, the better part of an hour later leaving than he usually was, what with having freaked out a bit over his hand and then taken longer in the shower than usual washing himself one-handed, and then having it bandaged. He was normally home for dinner time. He watched the kids drain out into the foyer and onto the street. They looked for all the world like a class of schoolchildren on a trip, but they were dressed all wrong, a weird mix of styles, some of them dressed like tiny adults, some of them like normal children. Also, they were all vampires, every last one. One of them, a dark-haired little boy with big, hollow eyes, greeted Merlin as he went passed. “Evening, Mordred,” said Merlin.

The last of the child-vampires filed out onto the darkened street, and the door swung closed. Arthur squinted at the sign. _Juvenile Vampire Support Group_ , he read. Huh. “They’re so young,” he said.

“Actually, Mordred’s older than me,” said Merlin. He cleared his throat. “Anyway, I should get going.” He waved goodbye and flitted away to his Blood Circle, where he was going to have scones. Arthur watched him go, somewhat confused, and picked at his bandage. Werewolf support meetings were twice a week, Tuesday and Friday afternoons. He’d never been. The idea of sitting in a room full of werewolves made him bristle, but maybe he should give it a try. It could hardly be worse than sitting in a room full of vampires.

He voiced his feelings to Morgana while he was on the phone that evening, stirring tomato sauce into his pasta. It was store-bought sauce, but still, the closest he’d come to cooking since Morgana had visited. “Yeah, you should try it,” she said. “I have this friend who goes to a group for relatives of vampires, she says it’s really helping.”

“They have groups for relatives of vampires?” Arthur said, more thinking aloud than asking an honest question.

“Her mother got turned when she was ten,” Morgana said. “They look about the same age now – it’s weird for her, I guess.” Arthur thought of Merlin and his elderly brother. He wondered if Merlin’s brother went to a support group.

He didn’t really know what he’d expected Morgana to say. He supposed he’d hoped she would laugh it off or something, but he’d known she wouldn’t. Now that she’d recommended it he was even more resolved not to go. “I’ll think about it,” he said. “Look, my dinner’s ready. Call tomorrow night, yeah?”

“What are you having?” said Morgana, in that concerned way she had.

“Pasta,” said Arthur, then, before she could press any further, “talk soon, yeah?” He hung up the phone and settled in the living room to eat his makeshift dinner. The first bite was still a bit of a shock to his tastebuds. He wasn’t entirely used to the changes his senses had gone through yet. He switched on the telly and resolved to stay up late, since it was Sunday tomorrow and he could lie in.

It didn’t work out that way. He fell asleep on the sofa around midnight, woke up at four in cold sweats and confusion, stumbled to bed and dozed uneasily till seven. He’d been up for hours when there was a desperate knocking on the door. Awake, not especially bright-eyed. He’d been on the sofa in an exhausted stupor, channel-hopping. He stumbled to the door and peered through the peephole. It was a man with straggly white hair and beady glasses.

He opened the door, not bothering to keep the chain on. “Um, hi? Can I help you?”

The old man peered at him through his owlish glasses. “Ah, you must be the werewolf.” Normally that would have made Arthur bristle, but he didn’t say it any differently to how he might say _the teacher_ or _the vet_ or _the traffic warden_. “Is Merlin in? I need to talk to him at once.”

“Yeah, I think he’s sleeping,” said Arthur. “It’s day time.”

“Yes, yes,” said the old man. “You shall have to wake him. It’s very important.” He pushed past Arthur into the flat, dithered in the hall, then rushed into the kitchen and dumped the carrier bag on the table, all in the span of about six seconds. Arthur let the door fall closed.

“Um,” he said. “I don’t want to be rude, but who are you and why are you in my flat?”

The man flapped his hands around. “Oh dear, stop wasting time! I need to speak to Merlin at once.”

“How do you know him, exactly?” said Arthur.

The old man paused in his flapping and blinked at Arthur. “Oh good gracious, I do apologise. I’m his brother.” He rushed over and shook hands warmly. “Gaius. And you’re – Arnold?”

“Arthur,” said Arthur.

“Arthur,” Gaius repeated. “Fine name. Please kindly wake my brother. I’ve had a breakthrough. I need to see him at once.”

“Breakthrough?” said Arthur. Gaius was already unclasping his hands and rushing back to his carrier bag. He began unpacking a selection of tiny tupperware, a bunsen burner, and a bundle of asparagus.

“No time,” he was saying, sounding rather like the white rabbit. “No time at all.” 

Arthur gave up reasoning with him and wandered down the hall to find Merlin. 

It was two o’clock in the afternoon, which Arthur reckoned was maybe midnight, vampire time. He was asleep in his shadowy bedroom, curled on his side facing the wall. There were a few chinks of sunlight breaking through his blinds, but evidently not enough to bother him. They weren’t touching him, anyway. 

He looked quite peaceful. He also looked kind of dead. Merlin normally breathed, when he was awake, or at least faked breathing, out of habit or to make the living more comfortable, Arthur wasn’t sure. Now he wasn’t breathing at all. He was still as a statue. If Arthur couldn’t see the occasional twitch of his eyeballs through his eyelids he might have taken him for a corpse. Well, he was a corpse, of sorts.

Arthur shook him awake. Merlin grumbled and disappeared under the covers. Arthur kept shaking the lump he made. “I’m not trying to annoy you. Your brother’s here, he wants to talk to you. It sounds urgent.”

A corner of duvet fell back. Merlin’s blue eyes peeped at him. “Gaius? What does he want?”

“He didn’t say,” said Arthur. “He waved his hands a lot. He wasn’t very coherent. He said something about a breakthrough?”

It meant nothing to Arthur, but evidently it meant something to Merlin. His eyes widened under the duvet. He flung his covers off and near-threw himself out of bed. “Oh, not. Not _again_.” Merlin normally put pyjama bottoms on to go to the kitchen. Arthur didn’t know that he sometimes slept in just t-shirts and boxers, but evidently he did. His legs were long and weird and gangly. The shirt was so old and faded Arthur could barely make out the writing, but when Merlin turned and ran out of the room he saw that the date on the back was 1975.

He shambled down the hall, following Merlin, ‘cause he was bored and this seemed exciting. “Gaius, what did you _do_?” Merlin was saying when he reached the kitchen. “Please tell me you haven’t burned another house down or something.”

Gaius assured Merlin he had done nothing of the sort. “I’ve had a bit of a breakthrough and I need test subjects right away, before it decays.” His stuff was spread all over the kitchen table. There was a jar of what looked like fish eyes, some golf balls, a paperback book with the covers torn off.

Merlin clapped a hand to the side of his head. He had terrible bed hair. It was kind of cute. “Oh, no,” he said. “No way. Remember what I said after last time?” Arthur leaned against the door frame and settled in to listen to them bicker. Something about rabbits and guinea pigs and he really wasn’t sure which ones were literal and which ones were figurative.

Then, abruptly, Gaius was addressing _him_. “Arthur? How about you?”

“What?” Arthur hadn’t even realised they knew he was there. “What have I got to do with anything?” Gaius said it would work on him too. Arthur snorted. “No, thanks.”

Gaius assured him it was perfectly safe. And then he said, “I’ve found a way to reverse supernatural genetic changes, it should –” 

Arthur felt his heart skip a beat. He felt the wolf growl and seethe. He had heard that right? Had he understood the technobabble? He oughtn’t get his hopes up, maybe Gaius meant something else, and maybe it was all senile babble, but – he shushed Merlin’s protests. “I’m listening.”

Gaius said, “It should be able to restore your DNA to its unaltered condition.” He launched into more science-babble.

“Yeah, alright,” said Arthur. Hope was still fluttering in his chest. There had to be a catch. “Are you saying it would make me – that it would put me back the way I was?”

“Well,” said Gaius. “The effects would only be temporary, of course.”

“How temporary?” There was the catch. But he could deal with temporary.

“A day at most.” Okay, maybe not that temporary. That was very temporary. Gaius went on cheerfully babbling. “But if I can find test subjects, then I’m certain that in the near future –”

“I’ll do it,” said Arthur.

“No, you won’t,” said Merlin, as if he had any say in the matter. “No, he won’t.”

“Yes, I will,” Arthur snapped.

“You don’t want to do this,” Merlin said, and the desperation in his eyes made Arthur pause. “You have no idea what it’ll do to you. It’s not safe.”

“It’s perfectly safe, thank-you,” said Gaius crisply.

Merlin wheeled on him. “Look, you’re my brother, and I love you very much, but you’re _really bad at this_. Okay?”

“Stop trying to put off my test subject! I’ve been working on this all week!” So he’d only been working on it a week. Either he was a genius or this was a horrible idea.

And really, what did Arthur have to lose? What could whatever it was Gaius was planning to cook up possibly do to him that was worse than what had already happened? And if it worked – to have his body be his _own_ again – 

“Please ignore him. He’s always losing faith in me,” Gaius said with utmost politeness.

“Duly noted. Don’t worry, I’m still up for this,” said Arthur. He was astonished at how casual he was managing to sound. He was fizzing inside.

Merlin made frustrated noises and turned on Arthur. “Look, just think about what you’re doing. You have no idea how much this could fuck you up.”

“What have I got to lose?” said Arthur. Absolutely nothing. Fuck all. A shitty life. No-one to miss him except one irritatingly hipster-wannabe vampire – and Morgana, Morgana would miss him, but she was on the other side of the world. She’d get over it.

It might give him his life back. And if not, well, if it came to the worst, he quite liked the idea of being a martyr to science.

“You don’t mean that,” Merlin was saying. “You don’t want to do this!”

“I want my life back!” His casual tone dissipated. It came out as a yell. Merlin’s eyes widened, and he looked truly shocked.

“Fine,” he snapped. He said to his brother, “You know what? I’ll do it. Leave Arthur out of this.”

Arthur found himself actually a little touched at Merlin’s concern for him – but he was still in, and Gaius evidently knew that, or else he was very optimistic. “Excellent! _Two_ test subjects!”

Merlin almost wept in frustration.

*

After his one burst of rage, Arthur felt quite calm about the whole thing. Not nervous, but not especially excited either. He sat slouched on the tatty sofa in the living room and reflected on what he might have for lunch. Tuna, maybe. It was one of the things that tasted the same with or without meds and he didn’t think his can had gone off yet.

It was easy enough to tune out Gaius clattering about in the kitchen. It was harder to tune out Merlin pacing around the living room like a restless – well, a restless vampire, muttering to himself. Arthur snapped at him to stop it. “You’re making me anxious.” He switched on the telly and flicked through the channels, trying to drown Merlin’s muttering out. Merlin, in a rare burst of vampiric speed, snatched the remote and switched it off. He undermined the potential coolness by juggling it for a moment, almost dropping it.

“You don’t know what you’re doing.” Merlin gestured at Arthur with the remote like a baton. “You don’t know Gaius. Everything that _can_ go wrong, _will_ go wrong.” Arthur said he was exaggerating. Merlin launched into a list of Gaius’s many crimes, including, but not limited to, burning down a house and more stuff to do with frogs. “He’s a menace. He’s going to get us both killed.”

“Whatever,” said Arthur. He settled himself comfortably against the sofa and settled for guilting. “You don’t have to do it, you know. I’m sure he won’t mind if you don’t. I mean, you’re only his brother, it’s not like he cares that you don’t trust him or anything.” It had the desired effect. Merlin looked mortified and crumpled onto the sofa.

“I hate you so much.”

“I know,” said Arthur. He patted Merlin’s shoulder, as if that might help. 

A sudden, loud _bang_ made them both jump. Gaius wandered into the living room, carrying a tea-tray he must have brought with him and Arthur’s shot glasses. “All done!” he said brightly. “Are you ready?” Merlin wasn’t. Arthur was. Gaius ignored any and all response and upended his bottle over the glasses, shaking it till he had two reasonably-sized shots.

“Are those my shot glasses?” Arthur asked. Gaius stuttered an apology and said he’d wash them. “Nah, it’s fine,” said Arthur. After all, either it’d be worth it or he’d be past caring, right?

“Oh, so _he’s_ allowed to use your things,” Merlin snapped, backing away from the tray like it was a poisonous snake. “This is a terrible idea. I’m not drinking that stuff.”

Loath as Arthur was to admit it, he didn’t want to do this by himself. He selected one of the shot-glasses – the less chipped one – and toasted Merlin merrily. “I’m still in.”

“We might both explode!” Merlin wailed.

“Or we might not,” said Arthur. Gaius, ever helpful, offered to pay the cleaning bill in case anyone exploded. Merlin grumbled, but took a glass.

Arthur made the mistake of putting his near his nose, and winced. It reeked disgustingly of fish. Definitely not tuna for lunch, then. “Why does it smell like fish?” Gaius started to say something about salmon brains that Arthur didn’t let him finish. He did not, even a little bit, want to know what he was about to drink. He wanted it over with. He held up the shot-glass, toasting Merlin again. “Cheers, then.” It was best to treat it like medicine; one swallow, straight down.

It was worse than any medicine he’d ever drunk. It didn’t even seem to be quite liquid. It was like swallowing a lump of silly putty, and it tasted like a lump of silly putty that had been left on a radiator till it melted. Arthur gagged, holding a hand to his mouth to keep it in. It plastered itself across the roof of his mouth and the back of his throat. He didn’t think the taste would ever go away.

Then it was gone, working its way stickily to his stomach. Arthur stared at the stained glass in his hand for something to happen. He could hear Merlin choking and asking why it tasted so vile. “Do you feel any different?” asked Gaius.

“Not really,” said Merlin. “I feel fine.”

Gaius looked to Arthur. Arthur cleared his throat, dislodging the last of the goo, and said, casual as he could after something so vile, “it tastes disgusting, you should do something about that.”

Poor Gaius looked crestfallen. He sagged in disappointment. “Oh. Back to the drawing board, then.”

Arthur stared at his hands. He wouldn’t say he felt fine. Something wasn’t quite right – his hands. His fingers. They didn’t belong to him. With a stab of panic, he recognised the sensation he always got right before he transformed, spreading through him from his fingers and toes upwards, numbing him. Oh no, no, no. He was going to transform. Gaius’s stuff had fucked up in the worst way possible, it would be better if he just exploded – he was going to transform and probably tear Merlin and Gaius to shreds, and yeah, he didn’t like Merlin very much but he didn’t want him _dead_ , and he had nothing against Gaius at all except for the whole made-gross-rubbery-goo-that-was-currently-inducing-his-actual-worst-nightmare thing – 

He wasn’t transforming. He was just going numb. The relief was so intense that he sagged, crumpling at the knees and falling on all fours to the floor. He was numb all over. His ears had popped and his vision was blurring. He couldn’t hear, he couldn’t see – there was a moment of utter sensory deprivation, then a high-pitched howling in his ears. Then he was himself again, crouched on the carpet, retching up the contents of his stomach till he was spitting mouthfuls of bile and acid. Ew. _Ew_.

His vision was still blurry. He blinked, screwing up his eyes as he looked about the room. No, it wasn’t blurred, just in slightly softer focus. Because he was human. The wolf was gone. He scrabbled at his chest, as if he could check for certain that way. It was gone, gone, gone. No wolf. He was alone in his body.


	4. In which Arthur goes on a date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _He couldn’t feel the wolf, but he was starting to feel the place where it had been, like a scar, like the scars on his legs._

He looked around the room, still blinking. Merlin was on the floor, looking a wreck, and Gaius was hugging him. Arthur felt a curl of jealousy, and retched again, spitting up yet more bile and goo. “Don’t mind me,” he said, choked. Gaius tottered across the room to check on him patting his back soothingly. Arthur wiped his mouth and shoved Gaius away. “I’m fine. I think. I’m fine. I feel better now.” He stared at his still shaking hands, then looked up at Merlin.

Merlin was pale and drawn, and had he always been so unnaturally skinny? And like Arthur he was human. He was alive, and human. They were both human. Arthur couldn’t stop himself. He grabbed Merlin and hugged him, almost lifting him off the ground in his enthusiasm. He could feel Merlin’s heart fluttering anxiously, and he didn’t smell of the grave. He didn’t smell of anything at all, except gross burning rubber and fish. 

“Can’t breathe,” Merlin was gasping. Arthur let him go, his hands lingering on Merlin’s wrists, stuttering apologies. “It’s alright. Just. Lungs. Haven’t used them in a while. It’ll take a bit of getting used to.”

“Right. That makes sense.” He looked at Merlin. His skin was starting to flush, blood pumping through it. His eyes were really, really blue. Arthur hadn’t noticed before. Blue, and staring dead at Arthur. He was struck by a sudden and slightly embarrassing urge to kiss Merlin right there and then.

Gaius cleared his throat. Arthur jerked back, releasing Merlin’s hands. “Well, I think we can call that a success.” Gaius looked from Arthur to Merlin and back to Arthur, eyebrow raised. “Should I leave?” Merlin assured him he could stay. “No, I think perhaps I should leave.” He offered to pay for replacing the kitchen window, but Arthur told him he didn’t have to, since, y’know, he’d turned Arthur human, and that was priceless, right?

Gaius lingered in the flat a while longer, making half-hearted efforts to clean up in the kitchen and sticking Merlin and Arthur with needles. Two blood samples, two saliva samples, and two failures to procure urine samples (Merlin had said no; Arthur had said fuck no) and he fumbled out the door. Arthur saw him to the end of the garden path, waved good-bye, then turned and saw Merlin standing on the threshold, gazing out anxiously at the tatty garden.

He gave Merlin a look as if to say _c’mon, it’ll be okay_ , and maybe that helped ‘cause Merlin stepped down onto the path, blinking and looking utterly astonished. It would have been funny, seeing someone that enraptured by a crappy little suburban garden, if Arthur didn’t know just how long it had been since Merlin had been outside during the day. Gaius called out a last good-bye, startling them both. Arthur thought he was already gone.

Merlin pulled nervously at his sleeves and squinted up at the sky. “So how does it feel?” asked Arthur.

“Dunno. I forgot how good this is. It’s been so long.”

Arthur looked up at the sky. It was mostly blue, what clouds there were big and puffy. “Lucky it’s a nice day,” he said. “British weather and all.” Merlin was squinting up at the sun. “You’ll go blind if you do that.”

“Worth it,” said Merlin. Arthur left him to his weird, I’ve-not-seen-the-sun-for-like-fifty-years vigil until it got boring. Then he cleared his throat and interrupted.

“So, we should probably go back inside and do something about the kitchen.”

“Oh, come on,” said Merlin. “You don’t know how long this is going to last. You can’t waste it cleaning!”

Arthur folded his arms and fixed Merlin with a hard stare, ‘cause it wasn’t as if he hadn’t seen the sun in fifty years. “Well, fine. What do you think we should do then?”

The ‘we’ tripped off his tongue before he could stop it, and Merlin, damn and blast him, caught it. “Since when do you want to spend time with me?” Arthur looked at the concrete path beneath his feet. He wanted to say that he hadn’t meant to say we, but he kind of had. Who else was he going to spent time with today? Who else would get it? “Not that I don’t want to,” Merlin was gabbling. “Spend time with you, I mean.”

“What are you going to do, then?” said Arthur.

“I’m staying right here.” Merlin sat down on the doorstep and smiled sunnily – ha, sunnily – up at Arthur.

Arthur hesitated a moment, then sat beside him. “Fine, then. I’ll keep you company. You sure you don’t want to go somewhere else? There’s a park down the road.” It wasn’t the nicest park, but it had grass that wasn’t dying, and a pond.

Merlin shook his head and said emphatically, “I don’t trust this stuff not to wear off at an awkward moment. That would _not_ be pretty. Trust me.”

Arthur thought of all the vampire films he’d seen that ended with the sun rising, and of the various gruesome special effects they’d used to render the whole instantly-fatal-does-of-UV-radiation thing, and he was inclined to agree. “Fair enough,” he said. They sat quietly, Merlin gazing lazily up at the sky, Arthur still trying to get used to his fuzzy vision, and to having his body to himself. It was weird. He couldn’t feel the wolf, but he was starting to feel the place where it had been, like a scar, like the scars on his legs. Even if he got cured for good they’d still be there. He’d always be an _ex_ -¬werewolf.

“Oh, God,” Merlin exclaimed suddenly. “I’m supposed to be working tonight. I can’t go to work like this!” He stretched out his still-shaking hands, waving them as if Arthur could see the blood running in them.

“Like anyone’ll notice,” said Arthur. Merlin just looked normal. The only reason he knew anything was different was ‘cause _he’d_ been different till not an hour ago.

“Half the people I work with are vampires,” said Merlin dismally. “And most of the other half are werewolves.”

“Ah,” said Arthur. Shit, where did Merlin work that had that many vampires? “Where do you work, anyway?”

“Night shift in a call centre. There’s not that many options when you can’t go out during the day.” Arthur agreed that there probably weren’t, and suggested he call in sick. “It’ll look weird. Vampires don’t get sick very often.”

“Call in human, then,” said Arthur. That made Merlin laugh. He had one of those really stupid sounding laughs that never failed to make Arthur weak at the knees. Damn. It struck Arthur that Merlin really was _exactly_ his type. He’d been doing his best to suppress it, but now that there was no weird vampire smell in the way it was getting more difficult not to acknowledge that Merlin was kind of hot.

“You don’t have to stay here, you know,” said Merlin. “If there’s somewhere else you’d rather be today.”

“I’m fine here.” Arthur slipped down from the step onto the path, so he could stretch out his legs properly. 

“You’re much less grouchy when you’re like this,” Merlin mused. “Does being a werewolf make you grouchy? Or are you just grouchy because you’re miserable?”

“I’m not miserable,” said Arthur. It was a quick, knee-jerk reaction, to deny any negative emotions that weren’t ‘angry’.

“Your living room’s full of boxes and you won’t unpack them,” said Merlin as if that proved anything.

“I unpacked some!” said Arthur. He thought back. No, actually. All the stuff he was using right now had been in his rucksack or his sports bag when he moved in. “I got my kitchen stuff out.”

“Yeah, then you put it back in the box,” said Merlin. Arthur opened his mouth to say that that was how he liked it, that the boxes were the tidiest option since he couldn’t afford to buy any actual storage units, but thankfully Merlin kept talking. Less thankfully, what he said was kind of awful. “This is going to wear off pretty soon.”

“I know,” said Arthur.

“Just don’t get too used to it or anything,” said Merlin. Arthur assured him he wouldn’t. “I mean, I don’t want you to be too upset when you have to go back.”

Arthur squinted up at him. “It’s alright,” he said gravely. “I can handle it.”

Merlin raised his eyebrows. “If you’re sure,” he said in an ungodly patronising voice.

“I handled it the first time, didn’t I?” said Arthur. “Three bloody weeks in a hospital bed and I handled it just fine.” It was true, kind of. He’d handled it way better than he’d thought he would. It was just a bit of an understatement.

Merlin picked up on the double meaning in _bloody_ and winced. “Sounds messy.”

Arthur snorted. That was _definitely_ an understatement. He changed the subject. “How was it for you? Changing?”

Merlin shrugged. “Surreal. I got – attacked. I guess.”

“You guess?”

Merlin drummed the fingers of one hand against the concrete step. “Attacked. Seduced. It’s all the same thing, really. For us.” Suddenly that attraction was a little easier to suppress again. Ew. Vampires. Merlin went on, in a weirdly matter-of-fact tone, telling Arthur a rambling story about a sexy vampire lady who’d talked a lot about “eternal youth and power or something like that,” and then swanned off after turning him. “Anyway, I sort of staggered home and died on the doorstep. I must have scared the hell out of my mum, I don’t even know. Then I woke up a few hours later, freaked out, ran off, and I think I told you the next part already.” Yeah, he had. “What about you?”

Arthur looked away. That was not a conversation he wanted to have with Merlin. That was not a conversation he wanted to have with _anyone_. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Come on,” Merlin cajoled, as if he was trying to get an embarrassing anecdote out of Arthur rather than, I don’t know, the most traumatic incident _of his life_. “I told you mine.”

“I didn’t ask you to start sharing,” Arthur muttered.

“Yeah, you did,” said Merlin. And yeah, he had. Damn it. “Come on. Spill.” His toe poked at Arthur’s shoulder. Arthur pointedly didn’t look at him. He’d gotten pretty good at not thinking about the werewolf attack, but Merlin was making it difficult. He remembered, in excruciating detail, the sensation of the thing’s teeth sinking into his leg and had to breathe deeply through his nose so as not to throw up.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Merlin was gabbling. “I mean, I understand. It was more recent for you. I keep forgetting that. I’m sorry.”

“Right,” said Arthur absently. He shuddered and collected himself. He could do this. He’d been doing this for months. “I don’t want to think about that right now. Let’s not talk about that.”

Merlin reached down and squeezed his shoulder. Arthur made a show of shrugging him off, but he didn’t really mind. Merlin nudged him, and he nudged back, and the next thing he knew they were wrestling on the lawn. For all he pretended to be annoyed, he didn’t mind. How long had it been since he’d felt comfortable with somebody? Not since the last time he’d seen Morgana. 

He pinned Merlin firmly to the grass and smirked down at him, triumphant. He tried to say something indignant, but he couldn’t seem to get it out without laughing. Merlin took advantage of his moment of weakness to wriggle free and pin Arthur. He sat atop Arthur, grinning like he’d won or something. The sun was behind him, shining through his ears, making them all weird and translucent. Arthur wondered, absently, who the last person to see Merlin in the sunlight was.

It was a fair bet that someone as skinny was Merlin was – yeah – ticklish. He tickled Merlin till his grip slackened, and rolled him over and pinned him again. “There. I win.”

“Alright, fine. You win,” said Merlin with a patronising roll of his eyes. Arthur found his ticklish spots again and went for it _mercilessly_ , tickling till Merlin was writhing and panting out a surrender.

“I _always_ win,” he said proudly, sitting back, still straddling Merlin. Merlin, who was struggling to push himself up on his elbows, and staring up at Arthur with a mutely bewildered look on his face. Arthur could see his shoulders heaving as he breathed. “You okay?” he said. Merlin looked sort of winded.

“I’m fine,” said Merlin. He wriggled out of Arthur’s grip.

“You have grass in your hair.” Arthur plucked out a few strands and tossed them away. Merlin swatted at his hand.

“Get off.” He rolled onto his back and lay staring up at the sky. Arthur hesitated, and lay beside him. He felt sort of giddy, like he wasn’t himself. He wasn’t himself, really. _Himself_ nowadays was a werewolf. _Himself_ had been a human before, but not this person who he was now. Sure, it probably wouldn’t last, but he was willing to relax into it for now.

“I used to burn _so_ easily,” said Merlin. He stretched out an arm as if by way of demonstration. “Do you think I’ll burn today?”

Arthur looked at him, registering for the first time how weirdly pale he was. It wasn’t so noticeable indoors, but outside in the sunlight it stuck out. “It’s not that sunny. C’mon.”

“I used to burn _really_ easily,” said Merlin. “The top of my ears. Every summer. I swear.” 

Arthur had never heard anyone sound so wistful talking about fucking _sunburn_ before. He smiled.

“Want some sun cream?” he said.

Merlin twisted his head to look at him. “Would you have to get it out of one of your boxes?”

Arthur considered. “Yeah, probably.”

“Then nah.” Merlin went back to looking at the sky and grinning like an idiot. Arthur rolled his eyes and shook his head against the ground, as if he were exasperated.

They lay out on the lawn for the rest of the day, till evening, when the sun sank below the row of houses across the street. Merlin watched the sunset from his crouching perch on the doorstep, a little teary-eyed – more than a little teary-eyed, but Arthur didn’t comment. He got it, or he got it as much as it was possible for him to get. This sucked for Merlin more than it sucked for him. At least he could go out during the day, like, ever. He wondered if maybe he should use this as a motivation to go outside more often.

Once the sun was gone, Merlin stood silently and walked back into the house, as if there was no other reason to stay outside. Arthur followed him in and they stood in the hall, a bit awkward. “We might still be… you know. In the morning,” said Arthur, by way of consoling.

“I’m surprised it’s lasted this long, to be honest,” said Merlin, not looking him in the eye. “What do you want to do now?”

“I dunno. Are you hungry?” Merlin said he was. Arthur opted for pizza, since he figured Merlin didn’t have much of an opinion on the matter, since he didn’t eat people-food most of the time. But then Merlin requested cheesecake, so he had to root through the stack of takeaway menus he’d built up since moving in till he found an Italian place that did cheesecake.

By the time he finished making the order, Merlin had wandered off. Arthur tracked him down the hall to the bathroom and found him leaning over the sink, peering at himself in the mirror, looking profoundly confused. It took Arthur a bit too long to realise why. “Are you alright?” he asked.

“Is that really what my ears look like, or is the mirror making them bigger?”

Then it hit Arthur. Of course Merlin was confused. He hadn’t seen his reflection in the mirror in – what was it, sixty years? “No, they’re pretty massive,” he said. Merlin clutched at his earlobes as if he could shrink them. Arthur laughed. “Have you really not seen yourself since –”

“Well, no!” said Merlin, as if it was obvious. Which it kind of wasn’t, since cameras had been a thing for a while now. Regular cameras, and polaroids, and phones with built-in cameras. “I really didn’t miss this part,” Merlin mused, scowled at his face in the mirror as if he was hideous rather than – Arthur checked, peering into the mirror over Merlin’s shoulder – completely adorable.

“You look fine,” he said.

Merlin toyed with his hair, then dragged himself away from the mirror. Abruptly his face was maybe three inches away from Arthur’s. Arthur could see him breathing, and there was something magical about that. Hell, maybe it really was magic. He didn’t understand what Gaius had done to them. “I should stop,” said Merlin. “I shouldn’t get used to this, y’know?”

He said it so plaintively, like he wanted _Arthur_ of all people to validate his feelings. It was written all over his face, that need for validation, and he was so _very_ Arthur’s type, and damn pretty besides.

And hell with it. Hell with everything. This was happening. Arthur was going to _make_ it happen. He was good at getting his own way – or he had been when he was human, and he was human now, wasn’t he? “I ordered the pizza. C’mon.” He touched Merlin lightly on the shoulder and darted out into the hallway, so Merlin would have to follow him.

By the time the pizza arrived, he’d got most of a beer into Merlin, which was enough to make him giggly – Arthur shouldn’t judge, maybe alcohol affected him differently now he wasn’t a vampire – and they were both comfortable on the sofa, Arthur’s bare feet not quite touching Merlin’s denim-clad leg.

The pizza was okay – it wasn’t Arthur’s favourite delivery place, but it was decent and did cheesecake. Arthur couldn’t focus on eating it properly, though, because Merlin seemed to be finding it almost orgasmic. “Oh God,” he said with his mouth full. “Oh, my God.” Sauce ran down his chin. It was completely sexy and completely un-sexy at the same time.

“You get that on my sofa you’re paying for it,” said Arthur. He nibbled his own pizza.

“M’sorry,” said Merlin, his mouth still full. He swallowed. “I’m sorry. It’s just. Food.” It was pretty self-explanatory, but Arthur still looked at him quizzically. “It’s like, all your senses get stronger but taste almost goes away, y’know? Except for blood. Everything except for blood you can hardly taste at all,” he gabbled. He took another bite of his pizza and made happy noises.

Arthur could empathise with that. His senses had gotten all screwed-up too. He hadn’t realised how used to it he’d got till he started eating the pizza, which actually tasted kind of bland to him now. “And yet you still took my Shreddies,” he said, poking at Merlin’s knee with his bare toe.

“That was for the texture!” said Merlin around a mouthful of pizza. He kept on eating at a ridiculous pace, only slowing down out of what had to be sheer exhaustion. He stuffed a good half a pizza down his throat, then sat slumped against the worn sofa cushions, picking at his next slice.

“You’re weird,” said Arthur, more to get a reaction than ‘cause he actually thought Merlin was weird. It worked even better than he’d hoped. Merlin snapped at him, called him a wanker, then slid down the sofa and leaned on his shoulder. Arthur twisted around so Merlin’s head slipped onto his chest instead.

“What did it feel like?” said Merlin, thoughtful. “For you? Changing back?”

“It was weird,” said Arthur. “I thought you were right at first, you know? I thought something horrible was going to happen, like – like I was going to explode, or turn inside out, or something. Then it was just – gone. The wolf. It’s just not there anymore. I mean, this close to a full moon it’s _always_ there. Like a monster trying to break out.” He didn’t say how weird he felt having it gone. That wasn’t something he felt up to sharing.

“I get that,” said Merlin.

“Yeah. I guess you do.” Arthur toyed with Merlin’s hair, which was soft and nice to play with, and contemplated his next move. “You want some cheesecake?”

“I could go for cheesecake,” said Merlin. But he didn’t seem terribly enthusiastic. He wasn’t at all keen to move so Arthur could get off the sofa. Eventually Arthur had to just shove him off, which felt kind of counter-productive.

He ambled into the kitchen for the cheesecake, doing his best to act casual. When he came back Merlin was sitting in the middle of the sofa, looking slightly stupefied. Maybe Arthur’s charms were working. It had been a long time since he’d done this, what with Vivian and then being a werewolf, and he’d never really set out to seduce another man before. Hell, he’d never had sex with another man sober before, but he was sober now. For once he didn’t feel like drinking. He’d gotten through maybe half his beer.

“It’s not really cake, is it?” said Merlin, poking at his cheesecake with an expression of utmost suspicion that reminded Arthur of the way his grandfather would look at a fancy TV remote or an e-reader.

“I guess not. It doesn’t really taste of cheese, either.” Merlin looked mildly disgusted and set down his spoon. “It’s delicious, I swear! Look. Try some.” Arthur took a spoonful and offered it to Merlin, which was ridiculously unsubtle, but by the look of confusion on Merlin’s face he still wasn’t getting it.

He ate the cheesecake, though. He ate it right off Arthur’s spoon, messily, leaving a dollop of strawberry sauce clinging to his chin. “You have,” said Arthur. “Strawberry. On your face.” Merlin’s tongue darted out and managed to miss it entirely. “No, here.” Arthur reached out and wiped the strawberry into Merlin’s mouth. Merlin’s tongue slipped out again, licking his fingertip.

“You were right,” he said. “S’good.”

But still, even though they were now mere inches apart and Arthur had had his fingers almost in Merlin’s mouth, he didn’t seem to be getting it. Arthur toyed with his spoon, wondering what he could possibly do that would be more obvious, then gave up on trying to be charming. “Oh, fuck it,” he said. He grabbed Merlin’s face and kissed him.

Merlin went rigid as if he was actually _shocked_. But then he opened up and kissed back, and Arthur was pleasantly reminded that while Merlin looked like an awkward twenty-something he did in fact have sixty-odd years of kissing experience under his belt and it showed. For all the angle was awkward and clumsy, Merlin kissed him with a sort of confidence Arthur hadn’t expected him to be able to muster, his tongue slipping in and out of Arthur’s mouth, his lips tugging urgently.

Merlin drew back, but only for half a second. He scrambled onto Arthur, straddling him, his hips pushing against Arthur’s crotch. He kissed Arthur again, slow and forceful, taking command. Arthur clutched at him, trying to get control of the situation, because fuck, _fuck_ he hadn’t meant for this to go so fast. He managed to wrestle Merlin right off the sofa, onto the floor with a _thud_. Merlin yelped, looking slightly dazed, so Arthur kissed his neck, because there was a lot of it to kiss. He sucked wet kisses there till Merlin was gasping, and maybe they should slow down because Merlin’s lungs might not be able to take it, but he didn’t want to stop.

“You know,” Merlin gasped, “I’m supposed to be the vampire.”

“You have a really nice neck. I like your neck,” said Arthur, his breath passing over the wet spots on Merlin’s skin. He felt Merlin shiver. He felt Merlin’s dick pressing hard against his thigh. He drew back and stared down at Merlin, sprawled on the carpet, looking stunned and well-kissed. Merlin’s tongue darted out to wet his lips. “Want to take this to the bedroom?”

“We could do that,” said Merlin. “Do you want to do that – _mmph_.”

Though Arthur had given quite a lot of thought to how Merlin was ‘actually quite hot for a vampire’ and ‘definitely his type, or would be if he wasn’t the living dead’, he’d never really thought much about how Merlin would be sex-wise. He supposed he’d always assumed Merlin would be as awkward as he looked, but that was the thing about vampires, wasn’t it? They were never what they looked like. Merlin looked like an awkward twenty-something hipster, but he was, what, eighty-five? And how else would you spend sixty-odd years of vampiredom other than having copious sex?

Merlin was licking his way down Arthur’s chest with joyful enthusiasm and an unnerving amount of skill. He sank to his knees and stuck his tongue into Arthur’s navel like it was the most natural thing for him to be doing – which it kind of was, in the circumstances – and the sensation set heat churning in the pit of Arthur’s stomach. Merlin seemed to shrug, and unfastened Arthur’s jeans.

“ _Fuck_ ,” said Arthur as Merlin’s hot mouth enveloped his cock. For half a second or so his higher brain functions shut down, and when he came to his cock was what felt like halfway down Merlin’s throat and his hands were gripping Merlin’s hair like a life-line. At the noise he made Merlin drew back and started doing spectacular things with his tongue.

He let Arthur fuck his mouth, going lax and easy for it. It felt so good and he looked so gorgeous doing it that Arthur didn’t want him to stop, ever, but he was going to come in Merlin’s mouth _right now_. Fuck. He realised with a jolt just how long it had been since he’d got any, and he swore. “Oh, God, stop. Merlin, you have to – oh God, _stop_.” He tugged at Merlin’s hair, pulling him off.

Merlin wiped at his mouth and blinked up at him, confused. “M’sorry, I –”

“No, it’s just,” Arthur swallowed, cursing himself. Maybe he should just have gone with it. “– not going to last,” he finished. “It’s too much.”

Merlin scoffed. “Humans. No stamina,” he said with an exaggerated roll of his eyes.

And that wasn’t fair at all, because Merlin was human too right now, but Arthur didn’t say as much. “It’s been a while, alright?” he said.

“How long’s a while?” Merlin stood up, his arms winding around Arthur’s waist. Arthur flushed. Yeah, he really shouldn’t have said anything. “What, since you were turned?” 

“Well, yes,” he said. “I mean. My girlfriend – and I haven’t met any new people since then, so –”

“You met me.” Merlin kissed him, gentle, his tongue dipping into Arthur’s mouth.

“I guess I did,” said Arthur half into Merlin’s mouth. He made up his mind. “Come on, then.” He wrapped his arms around Merlin’s waist and dragged him across the room to the bed. Merlin yelped and flailed in his arms, but Arthur ignored him. He tossed Merlin down on the bed and straddled him. Merlin was glowering up at him. “Oh, grow a pair.”

He kicked off his jeans and his boxers, and looked up to find Merlin edging his way up the bed. He pursued. Merlin was wearing an expression of profound confusion. “You’re naked,” he said, as if that was somehow unexpected.

“Yes, I am,” said Arthur. “You’re not.”

“No,” said Merlin. Arthur unzipped his jeans, working the zip down carefully over his erection. “I have. Trousers.”

“Mmhmm.” Arthur tugged down Merlin’s jeans and his pants together and dragged them off his legs, tossing them away. “Now you’re naked.” He kissed Merlin, tonguing at his mouth, but Merlin turned his face away.

“M’not. I’ve still got my socks on.”

“As good as naked,” Arthur said. Fuck, he wanted to get on with… well, the fucking.

“We can’t do this with socks on.” Merlin started wriggling about, trying to get at his feet to de-sock himself, so Arthur pinned him casually the way he probably wouldn’t be able to if Merlin were his usual self right now. “I look silly.”

“I kind of like it.” Arthur, still feigning casualness, rocked his hips down so his cock nudged Merlin’s lightly. Merlin made a face that ought to have been ridiculous, even under the circumstances, but it kind of worked. “Suits you,” Arthur breathed. “Sort of sexy.”

“You think?” Merlin’s legs fell open. Arthur traced his fingers along the inside of Merlin’s thigh and felt him shiver.

“Hell yeah,” said Arthur. He figured that he obviously wasn’t going to get any sense out of Merlin, and he might as well go with it. He took the head of Merlin’s cock in his hand and squeezed gently and Merlin’s head fell back against the pillows with a _thud_.

It had been a while since he’d given someone a handjob, but really, it was just like riding a bike. All the tricks he’d used to use on his drunken one-night-stands came back to him, together with the memory of just how much he liked doing this. He _really_ liked cock. Oh, he liked pussy just fine, but there was a satisfying familiarity to cocks.

Merlin was gasping on the pillows, one hand mussing up his own hair, and for a while it looked as if Arthur had managed to wank him into total incoherence, but then Merlin abruptly seemed to remember that sex was supposed to be a two-way thing. He started clumsily trying to get his hand on Arthur’s cock, and for half a second Arthur was tempted to stop him, since he was doing such an awkward job of it. Then he was reminded yet again that Merlin had a _disturbing_ amount of practice at this.

His brain melted for a moment, and then everything was hot and frantic, Merlin pushing _up, up, up_ against him so they were half wanking each other off and half frotting. It was getting to be a good contender for clumsiest sex he’d ever had – which was impressive, considering he was almost stone-cold sober – but at the same time Merlin was doing things to his dick that made his head spin.

He came like he’d been hit by a train, yelling through gritted teeth, his whole body jerking, then watched breathlessly as Merlin gasped and writhed and came all over himself. He ran a hand down Merlin’s chest, tracing a thumb through the mess, then down his thighs, where he was hot and sweaty. He could hear Merlin breathing, frantic gulps of air, which made sense since he’d not breathed in, what, decades?

“Hey,” Merlin was saying. “Hey. Feel this.” He took Arthur’s wrist and began manhandling him. “You have to feel this.” He pressed Arthur’s hand firmly against his chest. It took Arthur a couple of seconds to realise what he was supposed to feel. “There. You feel that? Do you feel it?” He could feel Merlin’s heart beating – no, pounding away in his chest, _thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump_. And that was kind of amazing, wasn’t it? It was kind of like a miracle. Merlin was dead – _should_ be dead – and yet here he was talking to Arthur just like anyone else.

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I feel it.”

“I haven’t. Not for so long.” Merlin’s eyes flicked up to Arthur’s face, and whatever Merlin saw in his expression much have been hilarious, because he laughed until he was breathless again.

Arthur rolled his eyes in disdain, but Merlin didn’t even seem to notice, he was laughing so hard. He slumped down on the bed, his hand still on Merlin’s chest, feeling his slowing heartbeat. Merlin’s giggle-fit began to die down, and Arthur watched him quiet, feeling sort of amused and also sort of – _fond_.

Oh, fuck. This wasn’t a casual shag. This had never been a casual shag. Merlin was his _flatmate_ , for Christ’s sake, Arthur was going to have to look at him for the rest of – well, at least until the lease ran out, which was another five months. Five months of living with someone he’d gone and shagged on a whim, and he really didn’t care. That was the weird thing. He was actually okay with it. He liked Merlin. _Like_ -liked him.

“I’m still wearing my socks,” said Merlin abruptly, breaking Arthur out of his haze of terrified fondness. 

“Hmm?”

Merlin raised one foot so Arthur could see that yes, he was still wearing socks. “My socks. Still wearing them.”

“Oh. So?”

“They don’t even match. Doesn’t that bother you?”

Arthur blinked. Then he propped himself up on his elbows and looked Merlin in the eye. “Merlin. I don’t care if your socks don’t match.” There was a double meaning there, because it was true, he didn’t give a rat’s arse, but he also had an inkling of what Merlin had actually been asking.

“You sure? Because they almost never match. I’m lazy that way.”

“I don’t,” said Arthur, and swallowed his next words. Then he thought better of it, and soldiered bravely on. “I just – mismatching socks and ridiculous ears and all, yeah?”

Merlin stared at him, squinting pensively like he was about to speak, but he didn’t say anything. He just stared, and then he caught Arthur by the back of the neck and kissed him. His mouth was sweet and easy, and Arthur kissed back till he was too drowsy to go on.

He fell asleep listening to the low, miraculous thrumming of Merlin’s heartbeat, too tired by the sex and the completely ridiculous day to worry any longer.

*

Arthur woke up the next morning to a slight headache, even though he’d barely drunk anything, and an empty bed. He opened his eyes and stared blearily at the void where Merlin ought to be, then opened them wider.

Sunlight was streaming across the bed. The curtains were wide-open, and the room was bathed in light. It would have been nice, except oops, sunlight was _deadly_ to Merlin, and he wasn’t there. Arthur scrabbled at the sheets, frantic, as if Merlin might be hiding somewhere, or as if there might be ashes or dust or something to let him know what had happened.

There wasn’t anything. The bed was empty. Arthur scrambled to the floor and backed away as if the sheets were tainted and continued to stare at the rumpled place where Merlin had been lying. There wasn’t anything. He didn’t know much about vampires, but he was sure sunlight didn’t make them vanish without a trace. There ought to be ashes, or at least a stain. Merlin had probably just got out of bed.

And now that he was paying attention, he could hear water running. It was his shower – their shower, with its distinctive wheeze. He took a deep, shaky breath, embarrassed at his stupid pointless panic.

It was only then that he realised he was a werewolf again. He hadn’t noticed that the wolf was back, it felt so natural. He felt himself breathe a sigh of relief at being back to ‘normal’. Shit, was this really what passed for normal now?

He slumped back onto the bed and breathed deep, letting himself enjoy being his old-new self again. He’d meant to collect himself after a minute or so, but as he lay on his back, breathing deeply, he came to the realisation that he didn’t want to be human again. He’d thought he wanted it. He thought he wanted it more than anything, but that was before he’d got a taste of it. As weird and gross and unnatural the wolf was, it was a part of him now. He’d healed around it.

It reminded him of a tree he’d seen once. Someone had put up a railing alongside it, and as the tree grew it had swallowed the railing. He remembered thinking that if you were to take the railing out there’d be a hole right through the tree. That was what he was like, now. Take the werewolf out and there was a hole in the middle of him. And maybe he was actually alright with that. Maybe he didn’t want his old life back. Maybe he just wanted his new life to be less shitty. And maybe his life being less shitty meant having Merlin in it – in it properly, not just sharing living space.

He froze. He rolled out of bed and dragged on his pyjama bottoms trying to pretend that the preceding thought process hadn’t happened. The shower had stopped running, so he figured he’d use the bathroom and wandered out into the hallway.

_Shit_. He managed to time it just right so that he stepped out of his room just as Merlin blundered out of the bathroom, wrapped in a towel and dripping water all over the carpet. Both of them froze.

“Oh, there you are,” said Arthur, trying to sound casual.

“Here I am,” said Merlin. He blinked at Arthur, as if confused to see him. Which was ridiculous, because they were flatmates. Where else would he be?

Arthur cleared his throat. “You know,” he said, “when I woke up and the sun was out and you were gone, I thought for a moment that you’d, I don’t know. Vaporised or something.” He wasn’t sure why he’d admitted to that. He was terrible at awkward silences.

“Oh, no,” said Merlin. “I’m fine. Just a bit scorched. There’d have been a lot more mess if I’d – you know.”

“I’m glad that you didn’t get vaporised,” said Arthur.

“That’s good,” said Merlin, stilted. “I mean – I’m glad that you’re glad.”

“Well, I’m glad that you’re –” Arthur shut up before that sentence could get any more convoluted. “This is going to be unspeakably awkward, isn’t it?”

Merlin shrugged. “Probably.”

“Perhaps we should just, I don’t know –”

“Never speak of this again?” That wasn’t the response Arthur’d been hoping for, but he nodded.

“I mean,” he said. “You know what I mean. It’d been a while, and I was all –” He didn’t really know what he was trying to say. That it hadn’t meant anything, he supposed, since that was clearly how Merlin felt.

The fact that Merlin would be a vampire again hadn’t really entered into his thought process about wanting-Merlin-in-his-life. But now here he was, _vampire_ , and Arthur found he didn’t care as much as he’d thought he would. Sure, he wished he and Merlin were both human so they could actually get along, but he could live with this.

Apparently Merlin couldn’t. He mumbled and shambled away down the hallway to his room. The door clicked shut. Arthur gave it a moment, in case he came back out, then went into the bathroom.

Something soft squished under his foot on the damp floor. He looked down. It was Merlin’s socks, one bright blue and one spotty and under Arthur’s foot. He hesitated, then, not really thinking about what he was doing, grabbed them and shoved them into the pocket of his pyjama bottoms.

He splashed water on his face and peered at himself in the mirror. Okay. He could do this. He rested his hands on the sink, and said aloud, “I’m a werewolf.” He felt a bit of a tit, talking to himself in the bathroom, but it also felt kind of good to be saying it out loud. “Right. Okay,” he said to himself. He could do this.

He would have used the shower, but Merlin had left it all soggy. He figured he’d wait till later and tidied it up instead, putting the things Merlin had moved around back in their proper places. Merlin’s scent was all over his things. He’d have said something about no-you-may-not-use-my-toiletries, I-pay-extra-for-unscented-and-also-just-don’t, but the whole sex thing was likely to make any and all conversations awkward for the foreseeable future.

Back in his room, he sat on his chair and looked dismally at the rumpled sheets. He’d half-forgotten about the socks until he tucked his hand absently into his pocket and found them again. He pulled them out and looked at him. He put them near his nose, even though it felt kind of gross. They smelled of Merlin. Human-Merlin, not vampire-Merlin. The way Merlin should smell – the way he _would_ smell if he was human. It was weird, smelling that. He hadn’t been able to when he was human. Now he could smell it, and he probably never could again. He shoved the socks under his pillow and wondered what he should do.

Well. He could deal with it how he’d deal with any unfortunate one-night-stand. He showered, got dressed, and went on with his day as normal. He called into work sick, got the bus to the shops, then went home and did his best to clean the flat. Tuesday he went into work and did his best to act as if he hadn’t shagged his flatmate, which wasn’t hard, since it wasn’t something he normally did so that basically meant acting normally.

He didn’t see Merlin again till that evening, though he heard him blunder drunkenly into the flat early Tuesday morning. He stumbled about and swore until the hushed voice of one of his friends guided him to bed. Come evening, he wandered into the kitchen while Arthur was washing up his dishes from dinner and doing a pretty decent job of pretending nothing had happened. He looked bleary and gross, or grosser than usual. “Evening. You look awful.”

“Yeah,” Merlin croaked. “Have you seen m’socks?”

“Socks?” said Arthur, feigning ignorance. If Merlin noticed his slightest of hesitations he said nothing.

“The ones I was wearing when – that thing we don’t talk about – happened. I left them in the bathroom.”

“Haven’t seen them.” Arthur wiped off his knife and fork and pulled the plug, as if the noise of the sink draining might drown out the awkwardness. “Do you want some coffee or something? Do vampires drink coffee?”

“I’m good.” The fridge door rattled open. “I have to go to work. I’ve missed two nights in a row, it’s getting silly.”

“Yeah, I heard that you had fun last night.”

“Fun.” Arthur turned, drying off his hands. Merlin was wide-eyed, his hair sticking up around his head as if someone had given him an electric shock. “Yeah,” he said, haltingly. “I had fun. With my friends. I think there were cocktails.”

“Cocktails are fun.” Arthur’s gaze flicked to the bag of blood Merlin was cradling in his arms. “Shall I leave you to it?”

“If you like. I don’t mind.” Merlin kept on staring at him, wide-eyed and spiky-haired, for an uncomfortable amount of time.

Arthur cleared his throat. “I’ll just,” he said, “go, shall I?” Merlin nodded a dazed-looking assent. Arthur hurried out of the room.

His nose wrinkled on the way past the bathroom. By the smell of it, Merlin had managed to get throwing-up-drunk – and how did vampires even get drunk, anyway? He steeled himself and looked inside to see if he’d bothered to clean up. He had, though he hadn’t done the best job. Arthur considered going back to the kitchen and forcing Merlin to clean up after himself, then thought better of it. He couldn’t face the terminal awkwardness. He squirted some cleaning liquid down and gave the toilet a good flush instead.

Merlin’s weird behaviour only got weirder that evening. He snuck up on Arthur and tried to stealthily take a picture of him – and failed, of course, because Arthur wasn’t a fucking idiot, but then he just gave up and took his photo anyway. Then he rushed out of the flat without any explanation. Arthur ran the incident over in his head all day and concluded that Merlin was probably just super excited about camera phones or something, since they hadn’t had them when he was young.

*

Life – or unlife, if you wanted to be really technical – went on. Arthur went to work, came home, avoided Merlin, and sat on his arse in the living room all evening, except for his weekly chat with Morgana.

Morgana was the _worst_. Lately she’d acquired a tendency, after the usual small talk, to purr, “so how’s Merlin?” as if a) it was any of her business and b) Arthur had given her any reason to think he cared.

“I’m sure he’s fine,” said Arthur. “I don’t see much of him. Things are – weird.”

He must have hesitated on ‘weird’, because she picked up on something. “Weird how? Weirder than usual?”

“How’s work?” he said.

“Don’t change the subject,” she said. “Did you two have a fight or something?”

“No, we didn’t fight,” said Arthur quickly.

And _fuck_ but Morgana knew him too well. The line was silent for a few seconds. Then she said, “oh, you _didn’t_.”

“We didn’t nothing,” said Arthur.

“Oh, you actually did,” said Morgana. “You fucked him, didn’t you?”

“No!” Arthur exclaimed. “No! I didn’t do that! Why would I do that?” But it was all in vain.

“Seriously?” said Morgana. “I mean, I thought there might be something there, but I didn’t think you’d actually do it.”

“Okay, there’s _nothing_ there,” said Arthur. “It was a one-time thing. We were just – I don’t know. It was complicated.”

“You were just what?” said Morgana, ever eagle-eared.

“We were,” said Arthur. He swallowed. “Human.”

Morgana was silent. Now he’d properly stumped her. “ _What_?”

“I told you it was –”

“Arthur, _how_?”

“Merlin’s got this weirdo scientist brother,” said Arthur. “He made a cure. I don’t know how he did it.”

“So are you –”

“No,” Arthur butted in. “No. It was temporary. About a day. And, I don’t know, I guess we got emotional.”

“Jesus,” said Morgana. “Wow. Well, that’s certainly some big news. What’s he going to do with the cure?”

“I don’t know,” said Arthur. “I told you, he’s a weirdo. It’s not finished yet, anyway. We were his first trial.”

“…was the sex part of the trial?”

“No!” Arthur snapped. “God, no. You’re disgusting.”

She just laughed at him. “Wow. Okay. Are you guys going to be okay?”

“Okay as we ever are,” said Arthur. “It’s fine. Really. It’s finished. We’re done. How’s work?”

Morgana hummed a little, as if to say _hell it’s finished_ , and answered his question.

*

Of course, Arthur didn’t really think it was finished either. He just didn’t want to say as much to Morgana.

Come Friday afternoon he was loitering on the shop floor, straightening out the display towels in bathrooms, when someone said, “Hey.” Arthur looked up, and saw a dark-haired guy about his own age. A really, really hot dark-haired guy. He wouldn’t usually be Arthur’s type – he was kind of hipster-ish, the kind of guy Morgana would go gaga over – but he was properly model-type gorgeous. The guy glanced at his nametag. “Arthur,” he said, lilting out the R in Arthur’s name. His accent was Irish.

“Hi,” said Arthur. “Can I help you?”

“Yeah,” said the guy. “I’m looking for a bookcase?”

Arthur glanced over his shoulder, in case there was no-one in bedroom furniture, but there were plenty of other blue-shirted employees around. “Um,” he said. “This is bathrooms. You can probably find someone to help you in –”

“Yeha, well I want you to help me,” said the guy. He scuffed his shoe on the floor and said all earnest-like, “see, I’ve got this weird OCD thing. I always have to be served by the most gorgeous salesperson.”

Arthur stared at him, momentarily stunned. Then he laughed. “Does that seriously work for you?” he said, shaking his head.

The guy shrugged. “Working right now, isn’t it?”

“Oh,” said Arthur. “You sure about that?”

“Pretty sure.” The guy held out a hand. “I’m Gwaine.”

It was only when Arthur took his hand to shake that he realised Gwaine was a werewolf. He hadn’t noticed before, because he’d been distracted and because he wasn’t used to meeting werewolves outside of the SRC. He jerked his hand back like Gwaine’s was red-hot without really meaning to.

“Alright,” said Gwaine, holding up his hands. “Alright.”

“Sorry,” said Arthur guiltily. Gwaine looked a little hurt. He remembered the first time he’d shaken hands with a werewolf, and how he’d scrubbed himself clean after. He had a wild urge to do the same now, even though it didn’t make any sense. “I just – I didn’t notice.” Shit, was that why Gwaine was coming on to him? Because they were both werewolves and he thought –

“Nah, it’s cool,” said Gwaine. “I get it a lot. Not usually from our type, though. You new to this?”

It took Arthur half a second to answer. “Yeah. Seven months.”

“Ouch, that’s recent,” said Gwaine. “Nah, I don’t blame you. So, bookcase?”

Arthur paged someone to cover bathrooms and lead Gwaine across the shopfloor, asking the usual questions about what kind of bookcase he was after. Once they got to the bookcases, Gwaine looked around, eying them suspiciously.

“So, like,” he said, interrupting Arthur as he pointed out a couple that might work, “where do you keep the ones with the dirty names?”

“The dirty names?” said Arthur.

“You know,” said Gwaine. “The ones that have Swedish names that sound dirty in English.” He winked and clicked his tongue.

“We don’t have any bookcases with dirty names,” said Arthur, bemused.

“Aw, really?” said Gwaine. “’Cause I’d settle for Fart or something.” Arthur shook his head and pointed at a bookcase. 

“This one’s pretty good.” It was the one Merlin had, but he wasn’t going to mention that.

Gwaine went to the bookcase and sized it up. “Yeah, that looks about right. Got any others?”

He looked at what had to be every bookcase they had, chatting and flirting away the whole time. The werewolf thing didn’t come up again, to Arthur’s relief, and it was really nice to have someone to chat to who wasn’t a co-worker or Morgana or his vampire flatmate. But Gwaine was a customer, if an unusually talkative one, so it wasn’t that nice.

Gwaine circled back around to the first bookcase. “Yeah, I think I’ll take this one. The half height.”

“Did you really have to look at all of them?” asked Arthur as he took down the product number.

“Nah, I was pretty sure,” said Gwaine. “But I wanted to chat with you.” He took his product number and handed Arthur a slip of paper. “Swap you.”

“What’s this?” said Arthur, even though it was obvious as soon as he glanced at it.

“My phone number,” said Gwaine.

“What, you carry bits of paper with your number around with you?” said Arthur, because Gwaine so hadn’t had time to write it down.

“Just in case, you know?” said Gwaine as he ambled away backwards. He held his hand up to his ear. “Call me!” he said, ever cheerful.

Arthur waved him good-bye, feeling kind of stupid but also kind of chuffed, ‘cause how long had it been since he’d been on a date? Merlin didn’t count. Sure, there’d been cheesecake, but they hadn’t planned it in advance or anything. He was in such a good mood that he stopped off on the way home and bought himself ingredients to actually cook something. He was heating his sauce on the hob when Merlin crept into the kitchen.

“Hi,” he mumbled.

“Oh, hello,” said Arthur, his hand stilling on his wooden spoon.

“Back from work?” said Merlin pleasantly, as if they were normal flatmates rather than a vampire and a werewolf who’d gone and shagged not a week ago.

“Apparently.” Arthur gestured at himself, as if to say _well, duh_ , and recommenced stirring his pasta.

He’d expected that to be the end of the conversation, but Merlin said, “did you have a good day?”

Arthur’s hand stilled again. “Since when do you ask about my day?” he said, incredulous.

“I’m not allowed to try new things?”

“Not if they’re none of your business,” said Arthur. But Merlin sounded so earnest, and for once he actually _had_ had a good day, so he answered. “But yeah. I did.” He kept stirring while Merlin kept staring at him expectantly.

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

“Not particularly.” Arthur squinted at Merlin, suddenly struck by a nasty suspicion that he might somehow know about the Gwaine thing – but he was just being paranoid. There was no way Merlin could know about that.

“I’d tell you about my day but I mostly just slept.” Merlin pulled out a chair and sat down, as if he actually wanted to have a pleasant chat. “Did you sell much furniture?”

Arthur shrugged. “I guess.”

“Eat any meatballs?”

“Will you shut up about the meatballs?” said Arthur, laughing despite himself.

“I can’t help it. I like meatballs.”

“That’s nice for you, I guess.” Arthur fetched down the garlic powder and seasoned his dinner. “Are you just going to sit there and watch me cook?”

“No,” said Merlin as if the idea had only just occurred to him. “No! I have to get ready for work.” He stood up and raced out of the room. Arthur rolled his eyes and stirred his chilli.

*

Arthur’d meant to wait a polite couple of days before calling Gwaine, but he ended up calling him back the very next evening, more out of boredom than anything else. “Hi,” he said. “It’s Arthur. From IKEA?”

“Oh, hi!” said Gwaine. “Hey, I just got my bookcase put together, it looks smashing.”

“That’s great,” said Arthur. “Listen, I was wondering if you wanted to maybe – I thought Friday?”

“You asking me out on a date?” said Gwaine, then before Arthur could clarify that yeah, he was, “sure. I’m free Friday. You want dinner? I know this great Tex-Mex place.”

“Sounds good,” said Arthur. “Seven?”

“Seven’s grand,” said Gwaine. “Hey, I have to go to work. I work nights. I’ll see you Friday, okay?”

It wasn’t till Arthur hung up the phone that he realised he’d never been on a date with another guy before, let alone with another werewolf. It was kind of weird how not-weird it felt.

Not weird, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t stressful. Come Friday night he found himself in a girlish panic about what to wear. He stood by his wardrobe, raking through his shirts, wishing half his clothes weren’t still in boxes. He hadn’t expected to have any need to dress up any time soon. Damn.

“Why are you always topless?” Merlin’s voice rang out. Arthur started and glowered at him.

“I’m in my bedroom! What are you doing in here?”

“The door was open!” Merlin protested.

He couldn’t panic over shirts now that Merlin was watching. He grabbed one that Viv had once told him was nice and slipped it on. “What do you think?” he said – not because he cared what _Merlin_ thought but because there wasn’t anyone else there to ask.

“You going somewhere?” Which was obvious, really, but Arthur shrugged. “You hardly ever go out.”

“I have a date, _actually_ ,” said Arthur. He finished buttoning up his shirt and flattened out the collar.

“Oh. Who with?” Merlin said dully. Did it bother him? Arthur half-hoped it bothered him.

“No-one you know,” said Arthur. “Anyway, we’re meeting in an hour.”

“That’s great. Have a good time!” Merlin said, kind of haltingly, like he was forcing the words out.

Arthur ran his fingers through his hair, wondering if he should comb it. Merlin sounded it bothered him, and abruptly Arthur found that Merlin being bothered bothered him. “You don’t mind, do you?”

“Course not. Why would I mind? I don’t mind,” Merlin gabbled.

“It’s just,” said Arthur, choosing his words carefully. “That thing happened.”

“What thing?” Merlin stalked across the room and swatted Arthur’s hands away from his own hair. He started smoothing it out.

“Stop that.”

“I’m helping. You were getting it all over the place.”

Merlin’s fingers were cold against his scalp, but Arthur didn’t really mind. This close he smelled weird, but not unpleasantly so, not like he used to when Arthur was on his meds. It was kind of like sticking your nose into a tin of coffee grounds or something – at first you flinched ‘cause it smelled so strong, but once you got used to it, it was kind of nice. Merlin finished with his hair and started adjusting his shirt collar. “You’re such a girl.”

“Well at least you’ll look nice for your date.” Merlin kept on toying with his shirt collar, even though it had to be neat by now. “So what are they like? Your date?”

“He’s alright,” said Arthur, then swallowed. But it wasn’t as if he was admitting to anything. Merlin knew he was into men. “He’s very talkative. Irish.”

“Irish is good,” said Merlin absently. His hands were still on Arthur’s chest, tweaking his collar. “I went to Ireland once. It was nice.”

“I’ve, er, never been.” Arthur took Merlin’s hands and levered them off his chest. “That’s getting a little weird.”

“Right. Sorry.” Merlin stepped back, collecting himself. “Well, have a good time.”

“I’ll try.”

“Don’t do anything silly.”

“You’re not my mum. I’ll do what I like.” Arthur glanced at his watch. “Time to go. I’ll see you later, yeah?” It wasn’t quite time to go, but he wanted to get away from Merlin sooner rather than later. He tucked his phone into his pocket and ducked out of his room, then realised that he’d left Merlin alone with all his things and ducked back. “Don’t stay in here while I’m out. I don’t want you going through my things.”

Merlin folded his arms and fixed Arthur with a stony glare. “What _things_?” he said, with a touch of a sneer in his voice.

“Just get out, will you?” Arthur dragged him towards the door and deposited him in the hallway. Merlin held up his hands in surrender and wandered away to lurk in the doorway of his bedroom. He lurked and stared at Arthur, so he had to actually leave, even though it wasn’t quite time.

He ended up sitting in the restaurant, nursing a pint, for a good twenty minutes before Gwaine showed up. “Hey,” Gwaine said, clapping him on the shoulder. “Am I late?”

“No, I’m early,” said Arthur. “My flatmate –” He ground to a halt. He had no idea how to finish that sentence.

“You can tell me once we’ve ordered,” said Gwaine, slipping off his jacket. “’Cause mate, I am _starving_.”

“So I guess you know I work in IKEA,” said Arthur once the waiter had taken their menus away.

“Yup,” said Gwaine. “And you’re good at bookcases.” He grinned.

“So what do you do?”

“I work nights,” said Gwaine. “Call centre.”

“Huh,” said Arthur. “My flatmate does that.”

“It’s a decent living,” said Gwaine. “So what’s this flatmate of yours like? Since you keep mentioning him.”

“What, I mentioned him like twice,” said Arthur. “Alright. Fine. He works in a call centre. He’s a vampire. He’s eighty-something. That’s really all you need to know.”

“Vampire,” said Gwaine, naturally picking up on the most salient detail. “That must be interesting. Is he the fun kind or the obnoxious kind?”

“He’s, er.” Arthur wasn’t sure how to answer that. “The obnoxious kind. Definitely the obnoxious kind.”

“But not the blood-of-the-living kind, right?” Gwaine sipped his water. “And where the fuck is my drink?” He twisted around in his seat.

“Definitely not the blood of the living kind,” said Arthur. “He’s the fill-the-fridge-with-bags-of-cow-blood kind.”

“Pig’s blood,” Gwaine corrected him casually. At Arthur’s confused expression, he said, “the SRC stuff’s always pig. I know a lot of vampires.” Then, before Arthur could question that, he went on. “So can I ask you a personal question?”

“Ask away,” said Arthur.

“You medicated?”

That was kind of a personal question. Arthur toyed with his near-empty glass and elected to answer honestly. “No. Not anymore. Ran out of money.”

“That sucks,” said Gwaine. “But hey, it’s probably for the best. I was on that stuff for like a year and a half.”

“Yeah, I don’t miss it,” said Arthur.

“Me neither,” said Gwaine. “It gave me the shits something wicked.”

Arthur almost choked on the last dregs of his beer.

“Okay, shit,” he said twenty minutes or so later, while Gwaine was tucking into his nachos. “You really want to hear the whole sob story?”

“Nah, don’t call it a sob story,” said Gwaine. “Think of it as – the beginning of the rest of your life.”

Arthur leaned back in his seat. “Pretty sucky life.”

“Well, you met me,” said Gwaine with a cheeky grin. Arthur gave him that one. “Come on, then. Tell me.”

“Okay. Fine.” Arthur leaned forward and toyed with his fork. “So I used to work for Pendragon Inc –”

“Wait, shit,” said Gwaine. He swallowed his mouthful of jalapeno. “Are you Arthur _Pendragon_?”

Arthur shrugged. “Guilty as charged.”

“Shit, man,” said Gwaine. “You were in the bloody _papers_. No-one knew what happened to you. I thought you were dead and they hushed it up.”

“Not dead,” said Arthur. “Not yet.”

“Jesus,” said Gwaine. “They did a good job covering this up, didn’t they? How rich _is_ your father?”

“Pretty fucking rich, okay?” said Arthur. “Can I finish the sob story now?”

“Right, yeah, yeah.” Gwaine gestured for him to go on.

“I used to work for Pendragon Inc,” Arthur repeated. “But then – shit, it’s kind of embarrassing. I was on this company team building thing – you know, wilderness survival – and – that’s when it happened.” He swallowed. He’d meant to say more, but he still wasn’t ready to talk about it. He could still see it, when he closed his eyes. “So then my father fired _and_ disinherited me, I couldn’t afford to pay rent, and my girlfriend broke up with me.” Was that really it? It had taken less time to tell than he’d expected. Fired, evicted, and dumped. Story of the last few months of his life.

“And now you work at IKEA and live with a vampire?” Gwaine shrugged. “Could be worse.”

“How could it be worse?”

“Well, you could be living on the streets.” Arthur conceded. “And hey, you’re out on a date with me! Things can’t be that bad.”

“I guess,” said Arthur. “So, do you have a sob story?”

“Nah,” said Gwaine. “S’not very exciting. I was hiking in Eastern Europe. Shit happens.” He sipped his beer. “So how long have you been off-meds?”

“Since I ran out of money,” said Arthur. He counted back. “Couple of months. I might go back on them. I’m not sure.”

“Don’t do that to yourself,” said Gwaine. “So tell me more about this flatmate of yours.”

“I don’t know. He’s obnoxious,” said Arthur. “Why’d you want to know?” 

“I dunno,” said Gwaine. “I’m curious. What’s it like living with a vampire?”

That set Arthur off. He ranted about the stupid hours and the noise, and the bringing-over-of-weird-vampire-friends, and the fridge full of pig’s blood that stank – and the stink in general, come to think of it. When he finally ran out of steam, Gwaine looked him dead in the eye and asked, “ever fuck a vampire?” casually, as if it were a perfectly normal question to be asking. Arthur choked on his beer.

“What?” he sputtered. “What the fuck? Why would you ask me that?”

“Hey, I’m not judging,” said Gwaine. “I did it once. Weird as hell. So have you?”

Arthur hesitates a moment too long before saying, “no.” Gwaine has a self-satisfied smirk on his face. “I haven’t!”

“Okay, okay, last question, I promise.” Gwaine leans over the table. “Was it your flatmate?”

“Alright.” Arthur steeled himself. “He wasn’t a vampire when we slept together.”

Gwaine looked confused. “What, did you guys meet before or –”

“No, it’s.” He wondered how to go on. “See, Merlin has this brother who’s a scientist – or he says he’s a scientist, I’m not really sure – and he made this – I don’t know, this serum – and it turned us human for a day.”

Gwaine stared at him. “Shit, man. Is he marketing that stuff?”

“Not yet,” said Arthur.

“’Cause I’d buy that, for a day,” said Gwaine. “What kind of scientist is he, anyway?”

“He does things with frogs!” said Arthur. “I don’t know. And anyway, I guess after we got turned human we got kind of overwhelmed and we – yeah.”

“He any good at it?” said Gwaine, which was a really weird question, but not the weirdest thing he’d said all night, so Arthur let it slide.

He thought about telling the truth, which was that Merlin had been kind of spectacular. Then he shrugged and said, “it was okay.” Gwaine snorted. Arthur took the opportunity to shift the conversation onto more normal topics.

They talked all through dinner, and on the walk to Gwaine’s bus stop. It was nice, but it wasn’t _nice_. Arthur had been on this kind of date before, the kind where you got along just great but really shouldn’t be dating. For his first date with a man, it was kind of disappointing. He hoped that Gwaine, being a bloke and all, wouldn’t get all dramatic about it the way some girls did.

He didn’t – actually, he saved Arthur from having to say anything at all. “So this was fun,” he said as the bus rolled up. “I’d be up for hanging out again sometime. But as mates, yeah?”

“Yeah,” said Arthur, relieved. “Probably for the best.” They shook hands, Gwaine waved him good-bye and climbed onto his bus, and Arthur began the walk home.

*

_Drinks tonight?_ Gwaine texted him the next afternoon, while he was still at work. _Can only do early. Am working. Say 6?_

 _6 is good_ , Arthur texted back. _Beer?_

_Beer is great. See ya!_ Then, a moment later, another text. _So hows Merlin?_

_Why do you care so much about my flatmate?_ Arthur texted.

_Just curious_ , Gwaine texted back. _He good?_

Arthur scowled at his phone. _We haven’t talked_. He shoved his phone in his pocket and resolved to not talk about Merlin to Gwaine, ever, ever again.

It was a resolution that cracked more or less instantly. “His friends are _all_ wankers!” he said when he was only halfway down his first beer. “Are all vampires that bad?”

“Most of ‘em,” said Gwaine. “Known some nice ones. Known some pretty dickish werewolves, too.”

“That proves _nothing_ ,” Arthur drawled. “Vampires are _all_ dickish.” He changed the subject to the footie, but Gwaine dragged it back a while later.

“So how come you guys didn’t work out? Was it just the species thing or what?”

“Mostly the species thing. I dunno.” Arthur sipped his beer. “He broke things off,” he admitted.

Gwaine raised his eyebrows. “Wow, really? I figured it was the other way around. What, you seem to hate him.”

“Pretty sure he hates me more,” said Arthur. Though really, he wasn’t sure at all. Merlin gave off such mixed signals, all the time. He’d said to never speak of it again, but then he’d seemed almost jealous when Arthur had a date. Maybe he was just confused, like anyone would be in this situation.

Arthur swilled the last of his beer around in his pint glass and wondered when he’d started thinking of Merlin as some-guy-he-lived-with rather than a bloodsucking fiend who’d invaded his flat. Probably before they slept together, but he couldn’t put his finger on exactly when. “Why do you keep asking?” he said. “Why are you so interested in me and my flatmate?” Gwaine shrugged. “Do you want me to hook up with him again or something? ‘Cause that’d be weird. We _dated_.”

“Okay, first,” said Gwaine, shifting about on the leather sofa to face him, “we didn’t _date_. We went on _a_ date. And second – I dunno, man, I want you to do whatever makes you happy. I don’t like seeing a fellow werewolf as miserable as you are.” He punched Arthur lightly on the arm.

“I’m not miserable,” Arthur lied. “And being with Merlin would _not_ make me happy.”

Gwaine raised an eyebrow. “You sure about that.”

“Well, I –” Arthur trailed off, his mouth working soundlessly, and the look on his face must have given him away. Gwaine sputtered out a laugh, and he cringed. “Oh, no, no,” he said, burying his face in his hands. “No. _Fuck_. No.” Gwaine continued to laugh as his head rolled against the back of the sofa in mortification.

“You’re properly into him, aren’t you?” said Gwaine.

“I’m not,” said Arthur. “I’m not!” he repeated, with every-increasing flimsiness. “Oh, _fuck_.” He dragged his hands through his hair. “Okay. Maybe I am. But it’s not like we could actually – he’s not interested, and – even aside from the species thing, we’re _flatmates._ That’s weird, right? Dating your flatmate? I mean we’d basically have to go straight to the living together stage and I’ve never even done that, and then if we broke up I’d be stuck living with my ex – or one of us would have to move out, and yeah, it would be him because he’s subletting from me, but I kicked him out once before and I felt awful, I don’t think I could go through that again.” He paused for breath, and Gwaine seized upon the opportunity to speak.

“You’ve put a lot of thought into this, haven’t you?”

“It’s crossed my mind,” said Arthur weakly.

“Listen,” Gwaine punched his arm again. “Like I said, if it’d make you happy, you should go for it.”

“It’s a terrible idea.”

“Then don’t go for it.” Gwaine flicked his hair out of his eyes and sipped his beer.

“Can I just date you instead?” said Arthur. “There’d be so much less drama.”

“Nah, now _that_ would be a terrible idea.” Gwaine down the last of his beer and grabbed his jacket. “I have to get to work. Lost track of time. That okay?”

“Yeah, I’ll just finish my drink.” Arthur lifted up his pint glass as if in salute as Gwaine left, then downed it and ordered another one.

He ended up stupidly drunk for a weekday, standing on the corner down the road from his flat, thumbing through the contacts on his phone and debating who to call. It wasn’t as if he needed _advice_. He just wanted to talk to someone before he went to bed. Pretty much anyone. His thumb hovered over Morgana, but then he realised he had no idea what time it was where she was. He found himself calling Vivian instead.

He realised as it was ringing that she probably wouldn’t answer, and for all he knew she’d changed her number, but then – “Hello?”

“Viv,” he said, trying not to sound slurred. “Hi.”

A pause. “Arthur?” she said, high-pitched, as if she hadn’t known who he was. And then, _fuck_ , she hadn’t know who she was. She’d gone and deleted his number. 

“Yeah, hi,” said Arthur. “How’s it going?”

“Good,” she said, drawing the word out. “Goood.” But she hadn’t hung up on him yet, so that was something.

“I was just calling to tell you know I’ve over you,” he said, though that wasn’t why he was calling, not at all, it was just the first explanation that came to mind. But it was true. He’d known he was over her when he’d realised she’d deleted his number and he hadn’t even cared. He didn’t care. Fuck it, he’d delete hers straight back.

“Of course you are,” she said. Then, to his surprise, she said, “so how are you?”

“I’m fine,” said Arthur. “Finnne,” he added, drawing it out the same she had. “How are you?”

“I’m fine too,” she said. “Okay, it’s really late. I’ll talk to you soon, yeah?”

She hung up. Arthur stared at his phone, not really feeling anything. He really didn’t give a shit. It was a good feeling, not giving a shit what your ex thought of you.

It struck him, as he was walking up the street to his flat, that not giving a shit what Viv thought of him meant not giving a shit that she thought he was – well, a werewolf. He didn’t really give a shit if that bothered people any more. Fuck them, right?


	5. In which Arthur gets out of his comfort zone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Merlin_ was _alive. Just unconventionally so._

He woke up the next morning feeling too nauseous to eat breakfast, and generally gross. He spent the whole day at work wondering what to do about the Merlin situation. Now that Gwaine had mentioned it, the amount of time he’d spent coming up with reasons why it was a bad of idea was kind of weird.

But this just wasn’t the kind of decision he was good at making, or not any more. He’d been good at being impulsive once, when he was at university and had one night stands, like, all the goddamn time. But then he’d got a job and a proper long-term girlfriend, and doing stupid things like sleeping with his flatmate just didn’t come as easy as it used to.

And even if he _could_ talk himself into it, who said Merlin even liked him? He didn’t have a clue how Merlin felt about him, so if he made a move they might just skip the dating part and go straight to the awkward part – and ‘living with a guy who doesn’t like you back’ might just be even _more_ awkward than ‘living with your ex’.

As it happened, the decision ended up getting taken out of his hands pretty quickly.

Arthur was hardly over the threshold that evening when Merlin leapt at him out of the shadows of the kitchen. “Arthur!” he exclaimed. 

Arthur was so startled he almost yelled. “Don’t pounce on me like that,” he said, heart racing.

“I’m not pouncing,” said Merlin. “Your shirt says IKEA,” he added inanely.

“Yeah, it’s my workshirt. I need to change out of it, yeah?” Arthur shut the door and started to walk to his room, but Merlin dashed out in front of him and blocked the way.

“Oh no you don’t. We need to talk.”

Arthur blinked. “What, right now?” He was tired and kind of sweaty. He wanted to change his shirt and probably take a shower, and then make dinner.

“Yes. I spent all day psyching myself up to do this and I’ve hardly slept and it’s now or never.”

Arthur took a longing look at his bedroom door. “Alright, fine. What do we need to talk about?”

“That thing we agreed not to talk about.”

That stumped him. He hadn’t expected Merlin to bring that up any time soon. “I thought we agreed not to talk about that for a reason.”

“Yes, but it was a stupid reason,” said Merlin, waving his hands in an awkward kind of gesticulation. “Look, I – you’re an utter prat, you know that?”

“I don’t like the way this conversation’s going,” said Arthur weakly. Shit, talk about mixed signals.

“No, I mean – you’re a prat,” said Merlin, which didn’t help as much as he evidently thought it would. “And you’re often obnoxious. You’re just so – _you_.” Arthur stared at him, utterly confused. What the hell _was_ this? Was this Merlin changing his mind? He really hadn’t planned for what to do if Merlin made a move. He’d expected this to be the other way around, if it happened at all. “And, I don’t know,” Merlin went on. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. And moping. There was ice cream for a while. And a strip club.”

“Do I really need to hear about the strip club?” Well, either way, Arthur wasn’t going to get to shower and make dinner any time soon.

Merlin looked thoughtful, and said, “probably not. It’s just, people kept telling me I’m going about this all wrong – I mean, Gwaine said – and even that creepy shaman guy –”

“Wait,” Arthur interrupted, “you know Gwaine?” His mind raced. Had Merlin somehow put Gwaine up to talking to him? That didn’t seem like Gwaine at all, but then again he barely knew Gwaine – and _how_ did Merlin know Gwaine?

“Yes.” Merlin winced. “No! I mean – that’s not important right now. What’s important is – is –” Arthur stared at him, baffled, and still stuck on the Gwaine issue. “Did any of what I just said make sense?”

“Not as much as I’d have liked,” Arthur managed.

“Fine. You know what? I give up.” Arthur opened his mouth to speak, but before he could get a word out Merlin grabbed hold of the collar of his work shirt and kissed him.

His lips were really cold, colder than Arthur expected, ‘cause even though he knew that Merlin was a vampire he still expected kissing him to feel like kissing a normal person. He probably wasn’t even that cold, just room temperature, but for half a second he felt like ice and Arthur stood frozen.

Then he thought _fuck it, this is happening_ , slipped his fingers into Merlin’s hair and kissed back with everything he had. Which was a lot, because Arthur had it from several reputable sources that he was a damn good kisser. 

His back thunked against the inside of the door. His hands slipped down to Merlin’s neck, and he was struck again by how cold he was, by the eerie absence of his pulse. He had another moment of panic, ‘cause fuck, was he kissing a dead person? But Merlin was shivering, and his mouth was warming up nicely from the friction. He was alive. Just unconventionally so.

He needed to breathe. With greatest reluctance, he nudged Merlin away so he could take a proper breath. They stood scant inches apart, Merlin’s hands still fisted in Arthur’s shirt. “You taste really weird,” said Merlin, which was a really odd thing to say to someone right after kissing them like that, but honestly Arthur was feeling about the same.

“You’re so cold,” he said.

Merlin gave him a look that was probably supposed to be coy, and said, “fancy warming me up?” 

It was the stupidest line Arthur had ever heard, and he’d heard some stupid ones, but he couldn’t find it in himself to say so. He couldn’t find it in himself to say anything except, breathlessly, 

“I’ll have a go, yeah.”

It had been too long since Arthur had got any. No, that wasn’t it at all. It hadn’t been long since he’d slept with Merlin. But it had been too long since he’d spent this long just kissing someone. It’d been too long since he’d been with someone he actually felt comfortable with – and when had he started feeling comfortable with Merlin, anyway?

It was probably weird to be musing about that sort of thing while they were in bed with Merlin’s tongue in his mouth, but he kind of had to muse about it. No, he had to say something. “Mmph,” he said, pulling back. “M’sorry, I pushed you away, I shouldn’t have – so _stupid_ –” That wasn’t what he wanted to say at all, but Merlin seemed to get it, or he got _something_ , anyway.

“S’okay. I was stupider. You don’t even want to know how stupid.” Arthur hmmed in agreement, because he didn’t have any trouble believing that, and sucked on Merlin’s earlobe. He heard Merlin gasp, and dipped his tongue inside. Figured that Merlin liked having his ears played with. His big stupid ears.

He sat back and started unbuttoning his work shirt. “I’m going to take off your clothes,” he said, “and then I’m going to _ravish_ you.” Merlin laughed. That had probably sounded almost as stupid as the ‘wanna warm me up?’ line, but Arthur didn’t give a shit right now.

“You’re absurd,” he said, lifting his arms so Arthur could drag off his shirt. “And I don’t deserve it,” he said, voice all muffled. “I mean it, I was so stupid, I should tell you –”

“Later,” said Arthur. They probably ought to have that conversation, but he hated that conversation. He went for his usual strategy for dealing with it, and distracted Merlin by kissing him, on the mouth to stop him talking, then his neck, his shoulder, his chest. He could hear Merlin sighing, and wondered absently how that worked, how Merlin went about breathing when he didn’t have to.

He didn’t dwell on it. The skin of Merlin’s stomach was soft, and he squirmed when Arthur kissed it. Squirmed, and squirmed more when Arthur started unfastening his jeans. The button was kind of awkward. By the time he’d got that unfastened and worked the zip open, Merlin started talking. “M’socks?” he mumbled. Arthur ignored him. “Arthur, why are my socks under your pillow?”

Arthur’s head jerked up. “What?”

“My socks.” Merlin was clutching them in one hand. Arthur closed his eyes, cursing himself. He’d put them under his pillow, and left them there. Fuck, he’d been sleeping with Merlin’s socks under his pillow. He hadn’t even thought about it like that, even though he’d gotten them out and toyed with them sometimes when he was having trouble sleeping. “I found them. Why were they under your pillow? I left them in the bathroom.” He was trying to sit up.

“Oh. Oh!” said Arthur, as if he’d only just understood what Merlin was talking about. “Right. Your socks. There’s a – perfectly reasonable explanation. For that. See, I found them. And. You said you’d been looking, so I kept them for you. So I could give them back. When you came home.”

“You kept them,” Merlin said flatly. Arthur nodded encouragingly. “Under your pillow.” Arthur nodded, less encouragingly. “In your bed. Where you sleep. My socks. That I was wearing when we –”

Arthur winced. “Yeah, alright, don’t rub it in.”

“Were you pining for me?” Merlin sounded genuinely confused, as if he couldn’t understand why Arthur would be doing anything of the sort.

“No!” Arthur exclaimed, and Merlin took that as confirmation. A grin spread across his face.

“You were! You were pining! You were so pining!”

“Oh God.” Arthur buried his face in Merlin’s denim-clad thigh. “Please shut up now.”

“It’s okay.” Merlin ran his fingers through Arthur’s hair, which was probably supposed to be comforting, and was a bit. “I pined too. I even pined in a strip club.” Arthur decided he’d had enough of this conversation, and started to tug Merlin’s jeans open. “Which in fairness,” Merlin gabbled, “is the most fun kind of pining, but – ahh.” Arthur pulled down his underwear and sucked on his cock in a last desperate attempt to shut him up, and this time it worked. Arthur hadn’t sucked anyone off in a while, but it wasn’t like you forgot how. He shut Merlin up good and proper, then released him, leaving his cock shiny and wet, and sat back to take off his shirt. He wanted to get naked.

“Don’ stop,” Merlin said, his voice all unsteady. Arthur liked that. He ought to have done this ages ago, it was obviously the best way to keep him quiet. “Please?”

Arthur tossed his shirt aside and went to work on Merlin’s jeans. “Vampires do this like normal people, right?”

“I guess. How do normal people do it?”

That left Arthur stumped. How _did_ normal people do it? “Well, I don’t know.” He dragged off Merlin’s jeans, then his socks, flinging them all onto the floor.

“Just don’t stop.” Merlin’s hands clutched at him, grabbing at his hair. He pulled Arthur down and kissed him. “I don’t want you to stop,” he said half into Arthur’s mouth.

“What?” said Arthur, bemused.

“I said I don’t want you to stop,” said Merlin. “Ever. We’re just going to keep going.”

“Until we die of exhaustion?” Arthur unzipped his work-trousers and began to wriggle out of them.

“Or starvation, whichever comes first,” said Merlin. His hands slithered up Arthur’s flanks, tracing over his ribs, and then gripped tight.

_Fuck_. He rolled them over, pulling Merlin top of him, and then grabbed him by the ears and dragged him down for a kiss. Merlin’s cock pressed against his thigh, slipping back and forth wetly, and it was messy but stupidly sexy. Merlin’s hand wrapped around his dick and he thrust up into his grip with a groan.

Merlin’s lips were on his neck, not even really kissing, just lipping and Arthur really shouldn’t have been surprised by what happened next. But he was surprised, and for a moment panicked, when Merlin bit _down_. He cried out at the sudden shock of pain. It hurt, and then it didn’t – or, it still hurt, but something really weird happened, a cool sensation that radiated through his body from where Merlin was biting, relaxing all his muscles and – oh. _Oh. Fuuuck_. In what was without a doubt the weirdest orgasm of his life, he came with Merlin’s fangs still in his neck, and with an intensity that left him sobbing.

Blood dripped across the pillows as Merlin pulled back, and his neck hurt again. Just hurt, without any of the niceness to take the edge off. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

Arthur touched his fingers to his neck and winced. It stang. “Ow,” he said. “I suppose I should have expected that.”

“Do you mind?” Merlin met his eyes. He had blood smeared on his chin, and he looked much more remorseful than he sounded. He looked positively stricken.

“Oh, probably,” said Arthur. But he didn’t, really. He’d have liked some warning first, but he hadn’t minded. He didn’t feel like he was about to bleed out and die, so it was probably fine.

Merlin seemed to have got his, whatever that meant for a vampire. He slumped off Arthur with a sigh and curled up beside him, his hand reaching up to Arthur’s neck, cupping over the place he’d bitten. “You taste really weird. I’ll try not to do it again,” he gabbled. “Promise. It’s not that deep, it’ll be fine.”

Arthur hesitated a moment, then rolled over to face him and wrapped an arm around his waist. “I guess this is why dating a vampire is a bad idea. I think I can handle it.”

“Are we dating now?” said Merlin, who was cursedly eagle-earred. Arthur hadn’t really meant to say that, or maybe he had. He wasn’t sure. “I mean, we’ve already living together, so we’ve skipped a few stages there. And, well, I can’t go outside during the day, so that’ll be awkward. And –”

Oh, Christ, he was way too tired and fucked out for this. “Shut up, Merlin. We’ll deal with that tomorrow. Let’s not think about it tonight.” He stroked the back of Merlin’s neck, where his skin was soft, and Merlin nuzzled at him, resting his head on Arthur’s shoulder.

He dozed off for a bit. Arthur had to shake him awake half an hour or so later so he could get dinner. He ordered in, since he wasn’t in the mood for cooking anymore, and flatly refused to heat up blood for Merlin, no matter how many times he insisted that Arthur had ‘broken’ him and he couldn’t get out of bed.

Arthur sat and ate his Chinese food, fumbling with the chopsticks, while Merlin sat beside him and sipped from a mug full of blood, staring at Arthur as if he couldn’t quite believe this was happening. “Is your neck okay?”

Arthur touched the plasters they’d stuck over it to check they were sticking okay. “It’s fine.”

“I really hope it doesn’t scar,” said Merlin. “I mean, I’m sure it won’t scar. I mean-”

“If this is going to work, you should probably talk less,” said Arthur. “Like, at least fifty per cent of what comes out of your mouth is bullshit.”

“Sorry.” Merlin took a mouthful of his blood, as if trying to shut himself up.

Arthur was kind of regretting letting Merlin drink blood in his room. The smell was going to linger. It would probably get into his bedsheets. But he supposed he’d have to get to be okay with that, because he kind of did want this to work. It would be awkward as hell and Merlin would have to move out if it didn’t work, after all. And also he just kind of really wanted it to work.

Merlin didn’t stay quiet for long. Arthur hadn’t expected him to, or seriously wanted him to. “’Cause I’m _really_ sorry about that,” he said. “I’d say I couldn’t help it, but that’s a terrible excuse. I guess it’s just been a while since I’ve been with anyone who wasn’t – well, a vampire – and it’s kind of normal for vampires, and we don’t really scar or have problems with blood loss, and – mmph.” While he was gabbling, Arthur had set aside his mostly-empty takeaway curtain, grabbed Merlin by the neck, and kissed him.

“So I think we should shag again now,” he said. “And then eat the cheesecake I ordered. Plan?”

“Plan,” said Merlin, sounding kind of breathless, which didn’t even make sense, since he was breathless by default.

Afterwards – after the sex and the cheesecake and all that jazz – Arthur woke up to find Merlin still in his bed, and asleep, even though it was the middle of his day. He rolled over onto his back and stared at the ceiling. He felt like any minute now he should start to regret what had happened and have to agonise over it and convince himself that he really did want it, but that didn’t seem to be happening. He continued to feel mostly okay. 

The bedroom, he realised, wasn’t that dark, or not as dark as it should have been. It was filling up with blue-ish light. He glanced at the clock. Five AM. It was probably almost sunrise. He scrambled out of bed and across the room to close the curtains, then picked his way back in so as not to wake Merlin.

But Merlin seemed pretty deeply asleep, so he probably needn’t have bothered. He was sleeping in that weird and kind of creepy way he had where he looked like a corpse. His skin had been warm last night, from the sex and the friction, but it was cool to the touch now. Arthur ran his fingers down Merlin’s outflung arm to be sure, then touched his neck lightly.

Merlin was lying scars-upwards. He hadn’t really noticed Merlin’s scars before, or if he had he’d not paid much attention to them, but now he looked properly. It didn’t look at all how it looked on television. There were no neat puncture marks; it was a heavy knot of scar tissue, lines scored into Merlin’s skin. It looked like something – someone – had taken a proper chunk out of his neck, which was exactly what had happened, Arthur supposed. He shuddered, fingers still tracing over the scars.

Merlin stirred. “What are you doing?” he said, his eyes still half-closed.

“Just looking.” Arthur snatched his fingers away.

Merlin opened his eyes fully and reached up awkwardly to touch his own neck. “Oh. Right. It looks kind of weird, I guess? I’ve never really seen it but people tell me it looks weird.” Was he self-conscious about it? Was that why he wore all the hideous scarves? 

“It’s not so weird,” Arthur reassured him. A thought struck him. Feeling bold, he sat up in bed and kicked the covers off. Merlin rolled over onto his stomach, watching him curiously as he disentangled his leg from the quilt and showed Merlin his own scars.

“Oh, ow,” said Merlin, his eyes widening at the size of the bite-marks on Arthur’s legs. “That must have hurt. Can I – ?” He reached out to touch. Arthur nodded, ‘cause it was only fair. Merlin’s fingers prodded gently at the scars, and he hissed. It was more sensitive than he’d expected. “Sorry. Does it hurt?” said Merlin.

“No, it’s fine,” said Arthur. “Just feels weird.” Merlin traced the jagged lines with his finger-tips.

“Well, at least it’s easy to hide,” he said. Yeah, he probably wore the neck scarves to cover up his scars. Arthur kicked himself for never having thought of that before.

Merlin lay back against the pillows with a sigh. He was looking up at Arthur with a stupidly dreamy look on his face, like Arthur was a pretty flower and he was on the brink of composing poetry. “Are we still okay?”

“Course we are.” Arthur propped himself against the headboard. “Why wouldn’t we be?”

“Dunno. Do you have to work today?”

Strictly speaking he did, but he could always call in sick. “Nah. I can stay home.” He crawled across the bed to kiss Merlin on the mouth, but Merlin flinched away almost at once, looking appalled. “What?”

“I feel weird,” said Merlin.

“Bad weird?” said Arthur, stroking Merlin’s shoulder.

“Bad weird. Bad, bad weird.” Merlin took a deep and unnecessary breath. “I don’t feel good.”

Five minutes later he was hunched in the bathroom, puking his guts out into the toilet – puking up blood. Arthur’s blood. Arthur leaned against the sink and watched, nose wrinkled. This was officially the grossest thing that had happened to him in a while. “You okay?” he said when there came a lull in the gagging.

Merlin spat in the toilet and shook his head. “No. Yeah.” He straightened up, rubbing the back of his neck. “Yeah. I think I’m better.” Arthur handed him a wad of toilet paper and filled a water glass at the sink for him to rinse his mouth. “Thanks. I.” He wiped his face and shuddered. “I guess this is why we’re not meant to feed on you.”

Arthur held up his hands. “Not like this is my fault.”

“No no, this is completely my fault.” Merlin swigged the water and went to the sink to spit it out. “Just. Never doing that again. Sure you’re glad to hear it.”

“Mm-hmm,” said Arthur. “Well, if you’re feeling better I want to take a shower.”

He found Merlin half an hour or so later, in the kitchen, making himself whatever-the-fuck-meal it was time for. “So,” Arthur drawled, leaning in the door frame. “I have a question for you.”

“Oh?” said Merlin, stirring his dinner – breakfast – whichever.

“How _do_ you know Gwaine?”

Merlin froze, bristling all over. He looked at Arthur. “Oh. I. I work with him.”

“You work with him?” said Arthur. “At the call centre?”

“Mm-hmm,” said Merlin, nodding. “We both work at the call centre.”

Arthur stared him down. He was kind of hoping Merlin was going to say it was a blind coincidence that they both knew Gwaine – but it wasn’t a coincidence. Merlin had mentioned Gwaine like he expected Arthur to know who he was. So Arthur stared him down until he squirmed and admitted the truth.

“Okay, okay.” Merlin set down his spoon and held up his hands as if in surrender. “I _might_ have put him up to asking you out.”

Well, what had he been expecting? Something weird and creepy, and if that wasn’t weird and creepy he didn’t know what was. “But I met him at _work_.”

“Well,” Merlin drew the word out. “I told him where you worked and gave him a photo so he’d be able to find you.” Arthur stared. “I was being stealthy!” Arthur continued to stare. “Oh, you can’t talk. You kept my socks under your pillow!”

“Not on the same level,” said Arthur, shaking his head. “ _So_ not on the same level.”

“Okay, look.” Merlin walked across the room. “Look.” His hands rested on Arthur’s chest, toying with the collar of his shirt. And then he said the last thing Arthur thought he’d say. “ _Please_ don’t be mad at Gwaine. It was my stupid idea, but he only did it because I told him you didn’t know any other werewolves and he thought you might be lonely. He’s a nice guy. So don’t be mad at him.”

Christ, that might be even worse. Had Gwaine only been friends with him out of pity or – “So I should be mad at you?”

“I’d rather you weren’t,” said Merlin. “But yeah. It was stupid. It seemed like a good idea while I was drunk. I was pining, and I thought it might be easier if you weren’t available, so I kind of had Gwaine ask you out.” He took a breath. “But then he said you just wanted to be friends, so I tried to pay him to make him keep dating you, because I’m a creepy weirdo – but I didn’t actually pay him, because he’s _not_ a creepy weirdo, and – mmph.” Arthur kissed him to shut him up. And then kept kissing him, to put off the rest of the conversation as long as possible.

“So you’re not mad at me for being a creepy weirdo?” said Merlin when they finally pulled apart.

“You’re a vampire,” said Arthur, stroking his hair fondly. “It kind of comes with the package.”

Merlin grinned, and kissed him, and went back to his dinner before it burned. “I promise to be less of a creepy weirdo, though,” he said as he stirred it. 

“You’ll always be a weirdo,” said Arthur, smiling. But he could cope with that. He needed weird right now, maybe.

*

He texted Gwaine later, while Merlin was in the shower. _So talk about coincidence: my flatmate also works in a call centre, and one of his co-workers is called Gwaine. How about that?_

His phone beeped half a minute later. _Haha weird._

_I know he put you up to asking me out. He told me._

Gwaine took longer to ask him that time. _Shit. Don’t hate me. I just thought you sounded like you needed a mate._

A moment later. _Mate as in friend, not the other kind of mate._

Arthur hesitated, his thumb hovering over the keypad. _It’s okay. You were right. Thanks._

“So,” said Merlin from the doorway. Arthur started. He hadn’t realised Merlin had finished showering. He was standing in the living room doorway, his hair still wet. “D’you think it’s going to be a problem that you sleep most of the night and I sleep most of the day?”

“We’ve worked it out so far,” said Arthur as Merlin flopped down beside him on the sofa.

“Well, so far we’ve been actively avoiding each other a lot of the time,” he said as he propped himself against Arthur’s shoulder. “Also, you might need to get blinds in your room. Curtains aren’t really good enough.”

“Hmm?” Arthur toyed with Merlin’s damp hair. “Yeah. Sure. I can do that. IKEA does pretty decent blinds.”

“Oh yeah, that reminds me,” said Merlin. “We really ought to furnish this place properly.” He waved a hand at the box-filled living room. “You need to get moved in properly. It’s getting weird.”

“Well you’d know all about weird.” Merlin swatted him half-heartedly. “Sure. We could do IKEA.” It seemed a bit early for IKEA, but they’d been living together for a while, and it was about time he took advantage of his employee discount. He continued stroking Merlin’s hair as his phone buzzed again. It was Gwaine. He texted him back idly as Merlin babbled something else about IKEA that he only half listened to.

“How’s Friday after work?” said Merlin. “For ordering things, I mean.”

“I can’t do Friday,” said Arthur. “I have. A thing.” He hit _send_.

“What kind of thing?” When Arthur didn’t answer he swatted at him again. “Hey. What kind of thing?”

“None of your business,” said Arthur. Merlin wriggled and nudged him. “A werewolf thing, okay?”

“A werewolf thing,” Merlin repeated. “Okay.”

*

The SRC was a really weird building. The parts Arthur were used to felt like some fucked-up mixture of hospital and prison, but now here he was standing in a large, cheerful room that belonged in a community centre. “Alright,” said Gwaine, appearing at his elbow with two cups of tea in polystyrene cups. “Glad you could make it.”

“I squeezed it into my schedule,” said Arthur. He sipped the tea while he looked at the people in the room. They were mostly standing around, only a few of them sitting in the ring of chairs that had been set up. He knew he shouldn’t be, but he was surprised at how normal they all looked. 

“Okay, you want some advice?” said Gwaine, lowering his voice. “Stay clear of Cedric – that guy there, in the leather trousers. He’s an arsehole. But Morris and Ewan – over there – they’re both nice guys. Oh, and here’s trouble.” He nodded to a pretty girl who’d just walked in. “Alright, Mithian. This is Arthur. He’s new.”

“Evening,” said Mithian with a pleasant smile. She held out her hand, and Arthur shook it. “I think I’ve seen you around the centre.”

“Probably,” said Arthur. “I mean, I’m here at least once a month.” It was a stupid joke – hardly even a joke – but Mithian still laughed politely.

“Alright,” said the group leader. “Everyone take your seats and we’ll get started.”

There was hustle for a few minutes as everyone filed into the circle – probably supposed to be non-threatening and equal, but there was no doubt as to who was in charge, it was the one human in the room, holding the clipboard – and then quiet. Arthur found himself sandwiched in between Gwaine and Mithian, still sipping his tea.

The group leader said what Arthur presumed was the usual introductory spiel, then, to his horror, looked at him. “Ladies and gents, we have a new member today. This is –” She checked her clipboard. “Arthur. Everyone say hello to Arthur.” There was a general murmuring of _hello_. “Arthur, since this is your first meeting, would you like to start? Only if you feel comfortable, that is.”

Arthur’s mouth dried up. He looked around the circle at all the suddenly expectant eyes, and he had an urge to bolt out the door. But then he thought, _what the hell_. Why else had he come here, if not to push himself out of his comfort zone? “Okay,” he said. “What do you want me to say?”

“Anything you feel like sharing,” said the group leader. “Thoughts on the transition, perhaps.”

“Well,” said Arthur after a moment’s thought. “Lately I guess I’ve been thinking of it as a learning experience. I guess I didn’t really know anything about werewolves growing up – or about the supernatural at all, really – my dad’s pretty conservative about this sort of thing. So this whole thing’s been a shock to the system. For a while I wasn’t sure I could do it.”

“But you’re coping?” said Mithian beside him. She sounded entirely sympathetic. They were all nodding along, now that he looked, as if his rambling made perfect sense.

He thought for a moment. He said, “yeah. I’m coping.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Annnd that's a wrap! Thanks for reading. :) There may or may not be a fourth instalment in this series at some point in the future. 
> 
> In the mean time, if you enjoyed this fic then I'm going to shamelessly plug [The Underground People](http://archiveofourown.org/works/872788), which has a lot of additional world building stuff that might be of interest to you.


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